Sleep: the Warmth and Truth of My Body

The other day I felt really tired towards early evening. And I let myself feel it. I had come back from the Universal Medicine Retreat 2013 in Hoi An, Vietnam a couple of days earlier and had generally been sleeping more than usual and been more willing and able to feel what was actually going on in my body. And here I was, on a Wednesday evening, sometime between 7 and 8pm and I could feel a quite lovely tiredness after my working day. There was no weariness or exhaustion, no stress or duress, just an easygoing tiredness. My body felt warm, it felt like me and it felt right, familiar and quite lovely in its own way. An early night was definitely on the cards.

Nothing much to write home about then – except for one thing: sometime between 8:00 and 8:30 I would have to check my emails again! I was waiting for an answer from interstate that would determine whether I needed to set my alarm or not for early the next morning to work on a couple of texts that had to go out before I went to work.

I did what I usually do as far as my evening routine is concerned, and then back to the laptop – within 20 minutes and a few more emails I found out that there was more to do than I had anticipated and that there were actually three texts, two of which had to be back the following day. So I decided to do the practical thing and set my alarm.

No big deal – until I checked in with my body again: I had already become aware of the fact that the warm tired feeling wasn’t there anymore. All I could feel was that my head had become the most prominent part of me. I also became aware of an anticipatory feeling of being rushed sometime in the future (tomorrow), plus a hint of potential overwhelm and a real pressure around the assumed possibility of not being able to meet these new deadlines. And somewhere lay waiting a whole barrage of thoughts about all the other things I had to do and somehow squeeze into the next day, and subsequent days.

In other words, I wasn’t connected to my body anymore. If I wanted to sleep and sleep well I needed to reconnect. I could feel that these thought processes / emotions were slightly above and ahead of my body like a bank of fog: it felt really strange but it was very real. And it felt cold. It was hard to believe how cold it felt. I had to keep checking: it was definitely cold. And I couldn’t feel the tiredness anymore, just this immaterial and disengaged, cold and somehow empty blur.

I was just about to go to bed, but how could I settle and go to sleep? I knew that my body must still be tired but I couldn’t feel it anymore. It was amazing to observe how my head was running the show and feeding me this weird and unreal state of disembodied, strained and cold alertness. Had I not let myself feel the warm and very real physical tiredness before, I could have easily fooled myself into believing that I wasn’t tired at all.

So I went to bed knowing this was not an evening for catch-up TV or other things. I needed to just get into bed and reconnect – I knew that my body must still be tired, but I had just lost touch with it and the tiredness.

What happened next? I just ever so slightly started feeling my body again; I was also aware of my expectation of meeting that warm and real tiredness again and then… I woke up an hour before my alarm went off the next morning and easily did all I had to do before going to work.

Big deal? Yes, for me it was a big deal – an amazing experience of the truth of my body and the disengaged coldness of an otherwise different choice.

But wait, there is more: I got my friend Katerina to read a draft of this blog and she wanted to know what happened after the semicolon and before I woke up the next morning!?

Well, it was just so simple and straightforward that I am nearly at a loss as to how to describe it. All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there. I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there. And before I knew it I had fallen asleep. Very simple and oh, so profound.

By Gabriele Conrad, Goonellabah, Australia

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Farewelled 40 years of depression after my first esoteric healing session in 2004; now living in suburban Goonellabah with fantastic views to the north after toughing it out on a rural property for 20 years; very much enjoying an active working life and the many close friends I have made. My life is great!

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767 Comments

Alison Moir UK says:November 10, 2013 at 4:08 pm

Hi Gabriele, I can relate so much to what you have said. One minute I am feeling that it is time to go to bed and the next moment I am thinking about something that I will need to do for the next day. If I don’t stop it there, the computer is turned or the ironing board comes out.

My sleep is so much more restful and complete if I listen to my body and don’t allow the mind to take me into the ‘urgency’ of tomorrow.

You are so right, Alison. I was reading my earlier contribution again and it reminded me that all I really have to do is to surrender to my body. Sounds easy but after years, no decades of living a rushed and strained existence and sucking the urgency and assumed duress of the next day/s into myself quite a bit of steadiness, patience and relearning are required. And yet, and still to my amazement, when I connect to my body and don’t rush or get frantic – I get so much more done because I don’t keep tripping over myself!

Gabriele, as you said ‘it sounds easy’ yet it requires re-learning. I have slowed down considerably in the way I work and walk and the world has not stopped. Things still get done but I have so much more time to dedicate to my self-care. Great blog.

Wunderbare Gabriele thank you for this – for me – so mind blowing sharing. It help me a lot to understand more of all my ingrained behaviors with working and being disciplined. These behaviors are often starting without me being aware of it and it is good to read that it needs my steadiness and my patience to re-learn. I love your sentences “All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.” This sentences gave me a warm feeling and a joy and the easiness in that sentences is infectious.

I love what you share Gabriele, there is a great image that comes with ‘how I can trip over myself’ getting less done as you say. For me I find it much more tiring to even think too much about what is next before I’ve completed what it is I’m doing. My body knows what is needed and the more loving care I offer my body the more it provides and supports what I need in a day.

Beautifully expressed Sandra – I also find it so tiring when I think too much. “Overthinking” was a big topic in my life, I was just in my head. I work in an IT department and there are always technical challenges I could think about. For me it is about learning to trust, what ever is needed my body will tell me, there is no reason to think ahead or to worry. My body tells me everything that needs to be done and what I shouldn’t do.

Wow Alexander, this is amazing to hear from an IT expert, which as far as I understand it, is a lot of head work and always somewhat the pressure to be needing to know more technical details. For you to approach life and especially your work from trusting that your body knows what you need to know is incredible.

Gabriele Conrad says:November 24, 2015 at 4:44 am

Great observation and I have found the same. When I am in two places at once, in my actual physical reality and the imagined time pressured future, it gets quite exhausting and it certainly doesn’t get more done, quite on the contrary. It is a huge distraction and only leads to mistakes and things having to be done again and corrected.

That is it isn’t it Gabriele the truth is we can get so much more done if we stay connected to our body, don’t rush and allow the day to come to us. I did this yesterday and I had a full day, but it was complete and I felt ready and prepared for the next day and my sleep reflected this. If I allow space in my day everything just flows and everything that needs to happen does, and my body does not feel racy and exhausted,

Great observation Gabrielle. It takes me quite some discipline to be in the body constantly, even I know being the head does not bring me anything, makes me close my heart and is even harming to myself and others. And still I go on.

That’s great, Alison. Your comment about getting the ironing board out made me laugh out loud. It is funny but crazy how we can override what our body is clearly saying as the end of the day is approaching, once we let the mind kick in. Thank you so much Gabriele for this awesome account.

I am sure that even spending one day closely observing what we do with the messages our body is continually giving us would be incredibly revealing, and doing it for a week would definitely expose the deeply held patterns of how we have lived while ignoring our very wise body. As you say Irena, it all comes down to honesty.

Great blog Gabriele and very true Alison, we can suddenly kick into “oh I’ve just got to do this” mode and suddenly we have lost touch with everything our body is feeling. It is so amazing when we truly honour our tiredness, a natural feeling at the end of the day and head for an early night. The body doesn’t have to fight with us and it saves so much energy!

Yes Rowena I absolutely agree how tricky that “oh I’ve just got to do this” thought is and where it leads – often it leads away from what is true and loving for my body and for myself. If I listen to the wisdom of my body and go to bed when it is time I wake early the next morning full of beans and everything gets taken care of gracefully just as Gabriele described.

so sneaky indeed how we can get lost or kid ourselves with this “oh I’ve just got to do this”. I love your sharing Rowena/Nicola . Enough – I am putting myself on a detox program for this pattern…the only thing “to do” is to stay present and connected to my body. Anything else is second.

Hahaha – yes me neither Gabriele … however, I can relate from quite a long time ago, also doing ridiculous things at night that I felt then ‘needed to be done’. Now I feel and trust my body and enjoy very nourishing sleeps.

Yes Alison, I also find this, instead of completing the day and going to sleep ready for the next day I am already in the drive of the next day thinking about what I have to do making a mini plan, starting some of them even. I often then wake up tired and when I start to do the work that I had planned it always feels as if it is a struggle. Instead if I was to just give myself the time to accept myself during the day that has just past and complete the day I would wake up ready to go and naturally the work I have to do would just flow.

Yes the urgency of tomorrow has struck me on many occasions too Alison. Its funny how quickly our heads can come up with everything and anything to not listen to what the body really feels. Its just about being more aware of our bodies feelings and letting the niggling little thoughts to not run the show.

I’ve experienced this too Alison…. Feeling I’m tired and then before I know it I’m caught up in activities resulting in the early night I’d planned not being so early at all! What I’ve found is that when I override my body this way, I usually feel more tired the next day and can also be hard on myself for overriding… In contrast, when I honour what I feel in my body, I wake up far more refreshed and all the things I feel I need to complete get done in a much quicker period of time. I find its great to have this marker, and that the body is always a marker we can come back to.

I can so relate to your comment Alison. I am learning to listen to my body and support myself lovingly to go to bed when I am tired. If I happen to have to work past my usual bed time, when I choose to accept this and not go into overwhelm or resentment, I get it done easier and faster, and find I can still easily fall asleep afterwards.

What I have noticed if I ignore my times of going to bed when my body gives me my signal which is usually around 8pm, if I stay up distracted doing something, I will feel over tied and struggle to have a restful sleep and wake up feeling more tired the next day. I really have to honour my sleep times and winding down ritual to support a restful night sleep.

Exactly the same for me Alison! The nights when I override the feeling to naturally go to bed earlier than normal and end up just doing ‘one more thing’ usually end up with me feeling tired the next day and not waking feeling fully rested. In contrast the nights I honour what I feel in going to bed (and even with the same amount of hours sleep) – I wake up refreshed, much more energy and I find there is a natural space that is created that allows me to complete all I need to do (plus some!) without rush or stress…

I know what you have described so well Alison. There is a moment I know whatever is required in this moment is complete. I can feel a settlement in my body and a change in pace as there is space for me to feel what is required in the next moment. Yet at a blink of an eye a barrage of thoughts about what still needs to be done, and how things could be better, egging me to push on and do more in the moment, although I have already felt it is time to stop.
I am learning to stay with the awareness that is there well before the anxious-making thoughts descend and play out their seductive game.

This is a great reminder to me about how loving it feels to just let go and allow myself to feel whatever is there with no expectations or outcomes… that is definitely something I can sleep with! Thanks Gabriele.

Letting go with no expectations or demands for an outcome sounds great to me too. We can be so outcome driven, with a focus on how things ‘should’ be that we forget to feel and connect with ourselves. Letting go and surrendering to just being feels great.

This is gorgeous Gabriele. I can so relate to the feeling of needing to let go and sink in to your body and that warmth before going to sleep. I have found that the more I let go and allow myself to surrender, the easier it is to naturally wake up early and have the clarity to do the work that I need to do. Whereas, when I go to bed in the anxiousness of needing to get up early, I have to drag myself out of bed. Beautifully written.

Jonathan, I can completely relate to what you share. If I allow myself to drop into my body and feel the warmth, I have a very peaceful sleep and am able to wake up early the next day feeling refreshed. If my mind is not settled and body feeling cold, I struggle to fall asleep and feel tired when I wake In the morning.

Jonathon thank you for your beautiful sharing. I feel the same way. If I truly surrender to how I am feeling then I have a lovely restful sleep and feel totally energised and ready for my day, but if I override my feelings of tiredness and watch tv etc I feel horrible the next morning and really struggle.

Amazing sharing Jonathan and I can relate I often have the anxioussness and then wake up with a drag and burning feeling in my eyes. I now feel inspired to trust that the warmth is there to connect back to even if at times I do not feel it.

Thank you Jonathan – I so needed to read this blog and this comment. I realise the way I go to sleep is so important and to take that time to reconnect and allow my body to let go and surrender to sleep is a practise I will do.

I have experienced this too Jonathan. I would much rather wake up early naturally than have the feeling of having to drag myself out of bed. When I feel heavy upon waking up in the mornings, I know it’s related to my choices the day before or more. Choices that was not honoring my body or myself. So, my choices today I know affects the quality of my sleep and how I will feel the next day.

Gabriele this is so beautiful, thank you. I love the simplicity of honouring how we feel, and, if we become distracted or disconnect not to try and fix it. You make a great point, if we feel tired one moment and then next we don’t then something doesn’t make sense – in that it hasn’t just vanished! To still honour that feeling and allow the body just what it needs offers the return (waking up refreshed) to allow you just what is needed for the next day. How amazing is that!

To honour what we do feel seems to be something we so often override or ignore, I know that I have so many times told myself, ‘if I just do this, then I’ll stop’. The consequences are never great. This is such a great reminder to stop and really listen.

Thanks Jane and Gabriele. Reading this again reminds me of how many times I have felt tired and then suddenly not tired and not questioned where the tiredness has gone (or not really gone at all). Such a simple question and observation that I have not paid attention to – but certainly will now. In my experience it is the seemingly tiny things that are often quite huge and transformational when paid attention to and lived!

Thank you Gabriele, perfect timing for me to read this and to feel how honourable it is to trust our bodies, to trust ourselves and how the mind is waiting for any chance to distract us and run away with its thoughts. This post is better than any sleeping concoction!

That is so true Rebecca, we don’t, although I can sense something within me that says (with arrogance) well my situation is different.. I must say that this actually is a trick, we all can connect, and we can all feel if we are tired or not. The key is acting on it though:)

So true, it was a perfect timing to read this blog, I have noticed these thoughts before going to bed to check my emails, the set up of the mind that wants to distract me from being with my body. I am thankful for this sharing, and it gives me the opportunity to be very aware by my next bedtime.

I totally understand what you’re saying, and it’s amazing how joining to our mind cuts the connection to our bodies. Thanks for the amazing, simple sharing, and it was beautiful to feel your words, how you felt into what was going on with no judgment on your self!

Thank you Gabriele, it is so easy to let those outside demands come in and override the delicious feeling of healthy tiredness. You remind me that how I live my evening time, and how easily and lovingly I choose to go to bed, will make so much difference to how I wake and live the next day.

Hi Gabriele, I just enjoyed reading your lovely blog again and it is a great reminder of how easily we can over-ride that initial message from the body, the warmth, the tiredness and the completeness of the day. Recently I had noticed how I was going to bed a bit later doing a few more emails before bed and saying to myself I don’t feel tired. I had let this run for about a week going to bed later and later, until I realised that this was affecting how I was in the day, such as not being attentive and letting things slip or get in the way. It was great to feel the knock on affect of over-riding that initial impulse to go to bed.

Hi Alison, what you write reminds me of the fact that “nothing is nothing and everything is everything” (Serge Benhayon). Years ago I would have never put the two things together, going to bed that little bit later every night and how it then affects how I am during the day. And yet – it does and it feels great to have become aware of all these nuances and take responsibility for how I live and thus, for how I feel.

Absolutely lovely Gabriele, it can be so simple and yet so profound when we choose to go back to what our bodies are telling us. After reading the bit about you at the end of the blog I realised I would love to read more about your life, you are an extremely inspiring lady!

Oh I know sooo well, the anticipatory feeling of being rushed and the subsequent overwhelm that ensues about something that needs to be completed by a certain point in the future. Thank you Gabriele for highlighting the importance of coming back to feeling the truth in our bodies and not be distracted by the false stories of our mind.

Yes, it is crazy really – our body lives always in the present and does everything we ask of it and our minds are either way ahead and entangled in the complications of an anticipated or dreaded future or for some, in the regrets or triumphs of the past. Sounds like a mental health condition to me!

And mental health conditions are on the rise at an alarming rate. How simple is the cure that you have described here Gabriele! What if, like yourself we learnt at an early age the difference between letting our minds run ahead or complicate things and the truth and wisdom of our bodies? It could be summed up by what you have written Gabriele about ‘an amazing experience of the truth of my body and the disengaged coldness of an otherwise different choice.’ Your writing simplifies life beautifully – what about writing a book Gabriele?!!

Thanks for sharing Gabriele. My friends and family think it’s very odd and unachievable to go to bed so early and be able to sleep but I now find it the only way for me. If I’m tired I can go to bed at 8pm and be asleep ten minutes later then wake up between 2am and 3am feeling totally refreshed and have all this extra time to do stuff in a better energy than if I tried to do it tired the night before. This just makes so much more sense and I feel much better for it.

A very relatable topic as I too have found myself feeling that everything is purely focused on whats in my head and all the situations and endless to-do lists. All the while I know my body has had enough. What has inspired me from this blog is the fact that by just feeling that tiredness and allowing that to be the focus as we go to bed the body gets a chance to rest in a higher quality. I have found that if I go to bed with my mind running the show my sleep is not as deep or effective compared to intentionally putting myself to sleep.

Hi Leigh, when you write “I have found that if I go to bed with my mind running the show my sleep is not as deep or effective compared to intentionally putting myself to sleep” I can really relate to that. If I go to sleep with a to-do list then I will wake up with one, there is no doubt about it, I have slavishly conducted that same experiment many times. Looking back to what I experienced and wrote about I can clearly see that it was one of the occasions when I truly surrendered to the wisdom of my body and let the mind be what the mind is – a chatterbox of sorts that will come up with anything and everything to try and take me away from what I feel in the body – if I let it.

That is an awesome point – how you go to sleep is exactly how you wake up. I’ve often wished it to be different and there to be a magical cure in the night so that if I abuse my body the day before then I’ll still wake up feeling refreshed. It has taught me that we have a responsibility in the way we put ourselves to bed, and the way we live our day, because ultimately, that is what we take to the new day ahead.

I can really relate to what you both say here, I have experienced the difference between racy before bed and calm before bed affecting how I wake up. And at the same time just expecting my sleep to magically swipe away all the days abuse and tomorrow will be a clean slate. But how is it a clean slate if I wake up in the ‘new day’ with the previous nights thoughts still playing?
“All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.”
This part really stood out to me this time around, it takes the strain off trying or forcing myself to ‘be me’ or re-connect. My bodies feelings never go away, I just ignore them and trying to feel them again with the intention/belief that they have gone somewhere where I must strive to reach them never works.

So true, any trying or forcing makes the body contract and go tight and hard and then it is very difficult, if not impossible, to connect to its yumminess and the warmth that is always there – and to the tiredness or whatever else the body is showing me.

Patricia Darwish says:April 20, 2015 at 5:59 am

” How you go to sleep is exactly how you wake up.” How true this is Meg. Often I will dream unpleasant dreams about the tasks ahead and not being able to complete them. I wake up anxious and racy about the new day. But letting go and honouring my body, preparing it for a lovely re-energising sleep ensures the following day unfolds with all its beauty.

Gabrielle it’s so true what you say about going to sleep with a to do list results in waking up with one. I used to wake up in the middle of the night to try and complete the to do list, lie there for a while knowing I’ll feel tired later if I keep awake and then finally get up to do it just because I might as well do it rather than just think about it! Now a days I plan my days so my day feels complete or I decide to stay with what’s more important, me and my body rather than give focus to a list.

Yes, it can seem like a big deal, but isn’t it the simplest and truest and most logical thing to do at the same time? The mind doesn’t have to tangibly and physically live the choices that affect our body after all.

Gabriele, I absolutely loved the description you gave to the changes and signals your body was giving you as you went from being body centered to mind-led and back into your body. I have spent so much of my life being a “spacey” child and unfocused and anxious adult. I knew I was not representing who I really am but felt like I couldn’t find myself! Now I know that all I need to do is breathe gently, do things slowly or gently and I feel myself again. I know this because it WORKS and all the many modalities, meditations, workshops, courses and “healings” I tried before did not bring me back to me in this way at all. Thank you simple-common-sense-Universal Medicine.

Yes, you are absolutely right, no outward method or modality can help us find ourselves – I tried travelling as well to add to the list. Isn’t it amazing that what we are trying to find is right there with us all the time, just waiting to be connected to?

Thank you Gabrielle for this great example of how easy it is to override our bodies and go into our heads, our bodies are always clearly signalling how to care for ourselves, and beautiful that you re-connected to your body and honoured this feeling – very inspiring.

Such a great example of how we disconnect from the feelings we know in our body – and as you say, let our head run the show. It’s such a subtle energy and can easily be over-ridden, but the outcome is profound. Yet when we trust and reconnect we’re right back there. So simple and so beautiful.

I can relate to what you say about going to bed complete. It feels awful to go to bed being worried about what there is to come the next day and having not completed EVERYTHING that needs doing on that day.

I remember when my daughter was about 1 and we were in a one bedroom flat and we were wanting her to sleep in her own room so she got the lounge. So at 7pm the TV was off and when I felt my body it was tired and actually wanted to sleep. It felt great to honour this by actually going to bed. But what really stood out for me was that I was obviously overriding how my body actually felt for the stimulation of TV, or in your case the computer. I can certainly relate to that now as I haven’t watched TV in a long time, but the busyness gets to override what my body wants. Like you describe we are then a walking head running the show with our bodies suffering! And with that I am off to bed!

I have noticed just how smart I can be at overriding what my body wants to tell me, and yet it’s not a smart thing to do at all. I love how my body will tell me honestly what it needs, the key here though is listening, as it’s so easy to tune out the body with the ‘I need to do this or that’, ‘I’ll just take a quick look at this’, ‘I’ll just watch to the end of this’, and there you go, I feel nothing.
So it’s a great thing to do – to allow myself the space to listen, simple as long as I keep choosing it!

I used to love to go to bed after putting my daughter to bed when she was young, it was a great routine to be in with her. I have just realised I have been going to bed early for nearly 15 years! I really appreciate when my body tells me it’s time to go to bed and if I don’t listen my eyes start to water and I get so lethargic I just have to lie down. So I’m learning if my body is so clear about when it wants to go to sleep what else is it trying to tell me, and more importantly am I listening?

I have also been someone who has always gone to bed early. It is almost like I have no choice as I just get more and more tired. But what I am noticing is how I can delay the actual winding down time that my body really needs in the evening.

Can certainly relate to allowing the busyness of life to overide when I go to sleep. I noticed that whenever my life gets busier and there is more work to do that my self care always slips such as giving myself the time to sleep, this means that when I wake up I am in far more exhaustion than when I started and therefore the work that I have to do is a far greater struggle.

Walking head – walking dead! Numb to the fact that our body is the most intelligent thing of all. Great reminder Vanessa to look out for every teensy trick the mind can play on distracting us away from who we truly are and what we truly feel.

I loved this blog- as I started to read it I expected it to be about the perils of allowing yourself to get distracted by emails etc close to bedtime, but the truth offered was way deeper. In particular I loved the reminder that we do not have to try hard to connect, just allow, for connection is our natural state, and comes easily if our bodies have become accustomed to that way of being.

And also that golden line of giving ” what was there permission to be there”….gosh that is gorgeous and such a gift we can give ourselves. It can be such a work in progress when we get in our way and don’t allow what is there, to simply be there but it is a road I am certainly glad I am on.

I couldn’t agree more Sarah, giving ourselves permission to listen to what was there to feel, and maybe not always honouring that, but oh so glad it is a more consistent choice that is made, is awesome.

With sleep being championed as the panacea, the great healer, how lovely to read your article Gabriele and everyone’s comments, which to me suggest that it’s our relationship with sleep, and ultimately ourselves, which can be a healer.

I agree Catherine – it is just an allowing of what is already there as our natural state underneath the turmoil and the noise and the at times frantic activity. I am learning that more and more and how simple it all really is.

Thank you Gabrielle for this blog, it is a great reminder of the infinite wisdom and power of the body to do what is right for us if we allow it and don’t let our heads rule the way. I love the description of just putting a “few feelers out” and “giving permission” – so simple and yet clearly so effective.

Wow this is a great blog Gabriele. I know I have ignored my body most of my life and lived in a thought world in my head. Observing it’s truth and accuracy now leaves me in complete wonder, and how much it really does know, what it can do and how wise the body is, just amazes me.

Amazing to read, I love your awareness. I could feel my body change when I read the first part of your blog (in bed) it started to relax more and wanted to feel what you were feeling, the natural warmth and tiredness.

As I read the next part it felt all to familiar, the to do list, what have, I got to get done etc.

It is truly amazing how you describe this, the ‘disengaged coldness’ and more importantly how from simply having the willingness to go back to the feeling you originally had it changed yet again. Very inspiring on how important it is to take note of our bodies and listen to them and more importantly that we have the power to change instantly if it does not feel right. Thank you or sharing.

This is awesome Gabriele and perfect for me to read this morning. I can really relate to being connected and feeling tired in the early evening and then letting the mind come in and take over and feeling overwhelmed and anxious about what there is to do in the future which then affects the quality of my sleep and how I live the next day. I love how you describe ‘I could feel that these thought processes / emotions were slightly above and ahead of my body like a bank of fog’ and how you didn’t beat yourself up or try to re-connect but just allowed. I can feel how I have often blamed myself for losing the connection to my body and how this only serves to take me further away because I remain stuck in my head. Thank you for this practical but profound and inspiring sharing of your experience.

Hi Gabriele, there are so many people who run busy lives and find it very hard to sleep at night but also many who just find it hard to sit down and let go of their day. Amazing to hear your experience, how you simply put your feelers out and ‘gave what was there permission to be there.’ It makes me realise how complicated I have made relaxing or just coming back to feel what’s going on in my body. Just letting it naturally be and allow it to re-balance and find its flow again is lovely to hear and very inspiring.

Gabriele this is great to read because I often have those times when I feel to rest and prepare for bed in the evening and then instead, get engaged in emails or T.V. and “forget” that I am tired. When I go to sleep its then in the anticipation of being behind, being tired etc. I will try out your simple tips!

Thank you Gabrielle, your article is very inspiring. I can so easily get distracted and fool myself into the illusion of doing more when actually the same amount could be done at a different time the next day ie. in the early hours shortly after waking up, for me anytime between 3 am and 4 am, and usually the day goes by without feeling tired.

I agree Alexandre – for me, this mad habit of ticking off things to do is totally mind driven and does not honour a loving rhythm at all. I find that I do this very often from an anticipated fear of overwhelm and more work coming in but the truth is, there is never more than I can handle as long as I stay connected and read what my body shows me so clearly.

Alex and Gabriele it’s great what you share. I too used to do a lot of ticking boxes but always felt my list did not stop and I would be so tired as I just did not give myself enough time to wind down. I have now changed my pattern, so I listen to my body when it says enough for the day I stop, I start allowing my body to unwind and prepare myself to switch off for the evening. I am so much more relaxed and not tired. I am able to fall off to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Yes, ticking boxes at the expense of how we are truly feeling is a big trap and I have noticed that listening to my body can sometimes even mean to stop working on a document one or two pages before it ends, but enough is enough and my body clearly tells me so. If I override it and keep going, that last bit really drains me and causes a nervous acceleration in my body which then makes it really hard to wind down.

Gabriele that’s a great point if we over ride the stop that nervous acceleration kicks in, which makes me feel worst. It really is about listening and stopping before the tiredness kicks in and understanding our body.

Lee Green says:August 23, 2015 at 6:35 am

I am still working with this too Gabriele but completely get the nervous acceleration that can come from – one more typed sentence or a phone call answered. This level of nervous tension is well learned and it takes a lot to quell and let go of – way more energy than honouring and then completing the task when the body felt to.

ken elmer says:September 6, 2014 at 9:33 pm

Yes, I had a similar experience with work. I felt exhausted but had a 2 hour job to do. I stayed with the feeling of exhaustion, honoring it. During the job I broke something and felt a wave of anxiety. I centered myself and carried on but I noticed that I was not feeling exhausted any more, then I understood that I was runnning on nervous energy (an old familiar habit). This time however I felt the shift and understood I had overoad the exhaustion and was running on nervous energy. It was a great awareness of an old pattern.

That is a great sharing Ken – I find too that I override the exhaustion and push through and then, if anything doesn’t go ‘according to plan’ the anxiety kicks in and together, the push and the anxiety, then become the fuel for that particular task. And what also happens is that the ‘doing and getting done’ of the job have become far more important than the quality I have been doing it in and whether I have been connected to myself or not. And really – could I be connected when the push is already something that had, by it’s very nature, taken me out of my body?

Thank you Gabrielle for sharing. I have been noticing that when I am tired and feel that warmth in the body, if I connect to that and honour it, I drop off to sleep instantly and awake fresh before my alarm clock goes of. If there are days when I ignore any tiredness, I go to bed with anxiousness, my sleep is restless and an alarm clock has to wake me up. Your sharing has inspired me to go deeper and really connect to my feelings of tiredness and just honour where my body is at.

I totally agree Amita. It can nearly feel like a kind of hangover in the morning when I let the tiredness slip away and go into nervous energy or anxiousness about the day ahead. Just goes to show that the body is the marker of what is really going on rather than the mind that can seemingly be so convincing with its messages to the contrary.

Thanks Gabrielle. I have noticed this too. That if I am not careful my mind finds emails to read and TV and jobs to do even though my body is telling me it’s bedtime and before I know it I’ve gone to bed later than planned and a bit racy and then not slept very well. Staying in the present and really listening carefully to my body are really important.

Yes I know what you mean Gabriele. There is a conversation going on with my body that is exact. A rhythm and a moment to moment flow. If I am OUT of this even for a few minutes I can feel the difference.

I so enjoy the clarity and depth in your expression Gabriele. I also wanted to know what happened after the semicolon and before you woke up, so thanks for sending the draft to Katerina and thanks to Katerina for her input. This highlights for me how sometimes sharing with another can be so supportive, and how we don’t say things sometimes because it seems so ‘simple and straightforward’ and we are ‘at a loss for words,’ or so we think, but it is in giving ourselves permission to expand and elucidate that offers ourselves and everyone else an opportunity for greater understanding and appreciation.

This is such a great blog Gabriele, and relevant for everyone. I can so relate to feeling tired and then opening the lap-top and an hour later I’ve totally numbed my tiredness and ‘think’ I’m fine. A great reminder to honour what we feel in our body.

Hi Gabriele,
There are so many times when I will feel tired, but let myself get distracted by all the things I need to do. At the weekend, I was feeling a little under the weather, and was at home gently doing chores. I had started washing up, and as I stood at the bowl, running hot water, I was suddenly aware that I felt very tired, I like to get things done and would normally finish what I’m doing before doing the next thing, but probably because I had had a cold and cough that week, I was more committed to honouring my body, so I immediately left the washing up, and lay on my bed just for 15 minutes to rest and just let my body relax. I know that I do this at work too, I may feel like getting a drink or to stretch my legs or even to go to the toilet, but I will want to finish this one thing first, which often leads to another, and I can ignore the impulse to do something else for quite some time in the end. So, I’m getting quite good at noticing these things, I just want to make a few more choices to act when I notice instead of ‘just a minute and then I will…. ‘ as if my body is the distraction, and not the main event to listen to…

I so relate to this Laura, in that I’ll just do xyz before……honouring my body. Noticing its messages and choosing to act on them, rather than completing yet another task that can wait. I don’t like to be late, so often then I’m ready early , but instead of allowing that time gracefully, I’ll often find another quick task to do and then find I’m rushing to get somewhere on time! Crazy! Choices, choices. Great blog Gabriele, thankyou.

All great comments on one’s sleeping patterns. I would fight my tiredness as I would not go to bed that early, but to be honest the next morning I felt just as tired.
I now go to bed early and sleep like a baby, and wake up really refreshed, to start a new day.

You hit the nail on the head Mike – that we are fighting our body a lot has been my experience as well and when you say it out loud or write it down you get to feel how crazy this is! Why fight the body that we take along everywhere we go and that has to do everything we decide to do? Would it not make more sense to have a very intimate and close relationship with our body and honour its messages and communication?

This is such a beautifully expressed and inspiring blog Gabriele. It’s great timing for me to read as I’m feeling complete exhaustion from overworking and getting the job done at the total expense of my body. Whilst I was ‘getting the job done’ I was overriding the tiredness and reaching for sweet foods to keep me going which has only exacerbated the situation. Now I’ve stopped I can feel the utter harm that I’ve done to myself and I vow never to put myself through this again! Thank you for this sharing and the reminder of how important it is to keep feeling and not overriding.

Thanks Gabriele, it’s amazing how the mind can run away on us if we let it. I sometimes go into all sorts of scenarios if I’m not careful, crazy stuff that probably would never happen. I am learning though to stay with how my body feels and not go there.

Great blog Gabriele and timely reminder to stop, feel and respond. Allowing myself to feel my body and not override its signals is the greatest gift . There is a total yumminess in just being and feeling. Thank you.

Beautiful blog Gabriele. My sleep is so affected by my previous days activities – although I have “known” this for a long time, it is only this year that I have truly come to understand it and live it. My sleep pattern has transformed (overnight! Ha! couldn’t resist that!) 🙂

Awesome Gabriele. You have touched on a great point and I relate well to getting caught up with the ‘doing’ of all the things to do, when actually I have a feeling of my body being tired and I easily override it with my head. This is a work in progress as I am learning to more deeply honour the messages my body shows me. I have found that when I listen to my body it really does know best even if my head thinks that it knows best and tries to talk me out of what I am feeling.

I so agree Beverley. What I feel never seems to make sense to my clever mind which has apparently all the answers, or so we are told. I have also found that the body knows best and that it is a mere question of listening to it and honouring what it shares.

Great blog Gabriele. I can relate to getting racy and not feeling the tiredness anymore and have to make a conscious effort not to let my mind run off on unhelpful thoughts, especially if I have reacted to something. I have noticed that the more present I am during the day, the better my sleep is.

It’s quite a momentum to keep feeding ourselves ever more stimulation, trying to cram more stuff in at the end of the day, isn’t it? Even if this stimulation is seemingly minor or even perceived as inconsequential or harmless – I was observing last night how I wanted to check my diary and how I was travelling for the rest of the week and it was way into my winding down period. It is as though what my day has brought and what I have brought to the day hasn’t been enough and needs to be upped in some way and improved upon – with the opposite effect of course and thus I had trouble falling asleep as easily as I normally do!

What a lovely sharing of how important it is to always honour what our body tells us. I like how you described the cold when your mind kicked in. I have found when I get caught in the doing that I can forget to stay with my body, I am learning to stay with my body and listen to it more and more.

I love how your article shows how tricky/’smart’ our minds can be, overriding our bodies clear messages . For me this is a standout line…’I could feel that these thought processes / emotions were slightly above and ahead of my body like a bank of fog: ‘…brilliant!, thank you Gabrielle,

And that is exactly how it felt Jacky, and the only thing that would stop me or anybody else feeling it is when I am not connected to my body and thus ignore the initial yummy feeling and how it changes into something cold and distant.

Gabriele, this is profound and very timely to read as I have noticed me doing the same thing when I know I am ready for sleep and then have to check the email/go on the computer before bed and how that warm snuggly feeling is lost. What is inspiring about what you have written is that all was not lost, you didn’t berate yourself, you clocked what had happened, let go and then had a beautiful sleep.

Gabriele. Reading all the comments on sleep, made me tired, went to bed early and slept like a baby, woke up feeling so refreshed and ready to to meet the day’s challenges. Another early night tonight.

Two things stuck out for me here as I read this, Gabriele.
1st of all – that stopping and listening to my body can speak volumes – and it is something I can do no matter how much work we have to do.
2nd of all – was trusting myself more. If I can’t feel the connection, I don’t need to beat myself up about it.
That is truly honoring.

You are quite right; it needs to be said that the more we have to do the more we are served and supported by listening to our body. If not, I have found that I come from a drive and an underlying lovelessness that then pervades and colours all I do.

I really enjoyed your blog Gabriele! I have done what you describe so many times and disconnected through the “pressure” of what needs to be done tomorrow. “Your words are food for thought, ” I knew that my body must still be tired, but I had just lost touch with it and the tiredness.” I noticed just yesterday that this happened to me at work I was feeling tired for much of the day. It wasn’t a big deal and I took the day very gently, but by the last part of the afternoon stimulation kicked in the form of adrenaline rush and I clocked the feeling of not being tired anymore. Your blog has brought a clearer awareness to me of what I felt and a simplicity of reconnecting when this happens.

sleep has been very challenging for me. Universal Medicine has supported me in trusting my body. when i can stay in my body, i sleep. it’s that simple. i wake up often, and i sometimes feel frustrated, then i breathe and get in my body, yawn alot and eventually go back to sleep.

Love it Gabriele, your last paragraph sums it up beautifully, that we just need to keep things simple when we are going to sleep, and honour our own body rhythm (of feeling tired and therefore going to sleep) – then the rest of our day will flow a lot more, as with your example of waking up an hour before your alarm was set to go off. Awesome

I know what you mean Gabriele. I have done similar things – checking social media just before sleep, which always gets me into a doing mode. It takes discipline to say no and to nurture oneself enough to claim the time to wind down properly before bed. I’m learning the importance of sleep and how much it contributes to the following day. For me, the next day starts when I go to bed.

Yes, that is so true – the next day starts when we go to bed. And the next day is very much influenced by how connected I am to me and my body then. I have found that if I go to bed racy and with nervous energy or stimulated in any way whatsoever, I then wake up with thoughts of what I have to do and a racy agenda in my head instead of enjoying the space I have created and starting the day gently with me.

I love the great insights you have shared here and can relate to feeling tired, feeling like it is time to sleep, time to take a rest or be gentle with myself but it is amazing how quickly a thought can come in that is so super important this connection with my body can be lost in a millisecond. It is inspiring to read how through our own choice we can reconnect by recognising we have simply given power to the demands of the mind. Thank you, Gabriele

Yes Julie we give thoughts so much power. When I look back I can see how hard I drove myself on nervous energy. Efficiency and speed was the name of the game then. Now sleep restores me, ready for the following day. And yes I wake up in the energy I went to sleep in.

It is so easy to go into a bit of drive or push or stimulation to get things done in a time scale. I know I can slip subtly and easily into this from feeling warm and connected and calm in my body, to a bit of mild panic or overwhelm in an instant. Then it is so easy to go into beating myself up for doing so, so it is great to hear how simple it can be to just stop, feel and allow or give permission for whatever is felt and that this is all we have to do.

I love this Gabrielle, you gave permission for what was there in your body to be there, simple and yet so effective. Oftentimes we let our heads dictate how we should be (I do) and when we let go and accept, it’s a whole other story. Great sharing thank you.

Gabriele, this is such a great blog and one I am sure that I will keep returning to. Mastering surrendering into sleep is still very much a work in progress for me and I am continually working on this. In addition to avoiding mental stimulation of any kind before retiring, which is essential, I also need to ensure that I don’t get too hot before going to bed otherwise this will be magnified once I go to bed making it impossible to get to sleep. A combination of managing my body temperature as well as not engaging with any mental pursuits, in honouring a winding down period before bed holds the answers.

An amazing blog, I can completely relate. I have an electric blanket on my bed, and getting into a deliciously warm bed is amazing. I also can relate to getting caught up in everything that needs to be done and forget what is most important in the present moment – getting a good night’s sleep.

This is so true. I have often overridden the body’s feelings with the mind or stimulation, which I have always paid for in one way or another, either exhaustion or anxiety etc… It is so simple, all it takes is to listen and allow the feelings and impulses and before I know it I am feeling amazing and in the full flow of life 🙂

I find there is such a huge difference between being busy in my head, distracted and with lots of thoughts whirring around – which leaves me tense and stressed – and the feeling of just being me, feeling at ease, relaxed and with myself in my body – it’s something I choose more and more now and I always find I sleep so much better this way too.

When I prepare and wind down for sleep a few hours before going to bed I find the quality of my sleep improves and I have the most delicious sleep, and like you, I also wake an hour or two before my alarm, and get many things done in this quiet time in the morning before going to work. Great sharing,
thank you.

Since writing this contribution I have also come to know that my day actually starts the evening before – which has added a whole new dimension to this wind-down period in total preparation and with dedication to me and the day ahead. How I go to bed mirrors how I wake up and start my day and this awareness and intent have added immensely to how I am during that day, how I am at work and at play and how tired or not I am at the end of it. It has also supported me with my level of presence during the day, it has become a very amazing foundation for everything I do.

Super blog, Gabriele. You highlight such a relevant issue here. Sleep! I am only just starting to embrace a very regular sleep routine and I can so relate to your comment in your blog about how your body felt warm, it felt like you and it felt right, familiar and quite lovely in its own way. What a sweet luxury it is to allow myself to feel my tiredness after years of hiding it away in the deepest recesses in the land of the doing. At times I am starting to wake up 10, 15, 20 minutes before my alarm goes off and the feeling brings a wonderful sense of joy into my being. When I have allowed myself to feel how relevant my evening routine is to the day ahead I recognise as you say in your comment above, that “it has become a very amazing foundation for everything I do.”. It’s an awesome way to start my day with the feeling that my morning has somehow expanded and there is so much time in which to go through my morning routine with the full presence of me.

As someone in the habit of ‘just checking’ my emails last thing at night and then suffering the sleep slings and arrows of outrageous, self-inflicted misfortune, I loved your insight into how to reconnect with the body once all that low-level anxiety has been raised, just at the point of pillow. By simply giving what is there – our true level of natural tiredness – permission to be there, that’s enough to reconnect to the truth in our bodies and enable a gentle acceptance of the sleep that’s ready and willing to roll.

It is beautiful to allow ourselves to feel the tiredness in our bodies. Something that I now experience. To honour what I feel and listen to my body is something that I now give myself permission to do. Thank you Gabriele

Yes Gabriele, simple, yet deeply profound. I love how you identified the tiredness and then shared with us your mind’s ability to override the bodies signals. I would suggest many of us live in this perpetual state of overriding 24/7 without brining our awareness back to the body and the simplicity of re-connection.

How our mind can override the signals of our body even tiredness we ‘forget’ to feel. I used to do that a lot, only listening to my thoughts, getting stressed and completely neglect my body, My mind would give me the idea I was so important, I could not be missed, I had to do everything, pressure pressure pressure. Since I allow myself to feel my body and in busy times this is still a challenge I recognize what my body is telling me and how great it feels to listen to the signals. And as I listen to the signals, my body is telling me more and more, the wisdom of our body!

This is so simple and as you say profound, I can relate to these feelings, I love how you trusted your body and knowing you were tired went to bed rather than overriding this earlier feeling and kept working and how amazing that your body woke up early and you were able to finish the work. This article is a testament to the amazingness and knowing of our bodies, all we need to do is listen and trust – very beautiful!

I loved coming back to re-read this blog, Gabriele. A great reminder for how our mind can take over and how easy it is to lose connection to what our body is telling us and yet very easy to re-connect again with awareness for what is going on.

Such revelations in one blog, thank you Gabriele. ” Had I not let myself feel the warm and very real physical tiredness before, I could have easily fooled myself into believing that I wasn’t tired at all.” Great reminder that there is always a point in our day in which we can stop and take the time to truly feel what our bodies want.

Gabriele thankyou so much for sharing what truly is a simple but very profound experience. All of what you have shared I could feel in my body i.e. the tendency to over ride what the body is feeling.
The last paragraph really does bring it all together (and tears to my eyes) Thank you and Katerina for the whole package. (It now has me feeling how important and supportive, not just to ourselves but everyone when we bring all of us to what ever it is we are doing i.e. sleeping, sharing experiences etc.)

Gorgeous Gabrielle. A beautiful and simple yet a powerful reminder of honoring what our bodies are telling us and trusting that all will be there for us when we do so. And I love how what shared about how you re-connected to your body – thank you highlighting again how simple this can be. I can feel the tenderness of this honoring though your shared words.

Thank you Gabriel for your simple but profound blog. I often go to bed anxious where my body feels rigid and my legs hot and jumpy. The next day I’m exhausted and brain dead. I’ve been wondering where the anxiety comes from. After reading about your experience, I now know that I override the warm tired feeling and the welcome of the bed. I’m still in my head “letting it run the show” and willing myself to sleep, which only makes the problem worse. I loved the way you allowed yourself to connect knowing that the tiredness was still there. So simple!

Thank you for sharing this article Gabriele. I always used to push myself to get everything ‘done’ in the evening so that I could have more time to do more things the next day. Not surprising that I found falling asleep very elusive and often tossed and turned with a busy brain for ages. I have now turned everything around and wake early with no need of an intrusive alarm clock feeling refreshed and deal with emails etc to clear the day ahead. This takes my foot off the accelerator and in the early evening I gently wind down ready for sleep knowing the day is complete. I drop gently asleep with my mind at rest. I love this way of living.

I have found the same Mary, when I pushed through, not only did I find it hard to go to sleep I also found I woke with a start and in a panic, worried that I had forgotten something or that I would miss my bus. It has changed my life to give this way of looking at my nightime a go.

Ah sleep is so beautiful when it begins with connection to the body and not an exhausted ‘I must get to sleep because I have so much to do tomorrow’. Thank you Gabriele for sharing your experience so beautifully.

Lovely to read about this night of yours as I have experienced this many times. Sometimes I can go for days being in a racy, alert state that by the end of the week or end of the month I realise how I haven’t honoured my warm tired feeling, great to see you can catch it again, feel it and honour it. That takes honesty even when it is subtle.

So often I override my body by driving ahead with my mind … and give myself a hard time for it too!
Thanks especially for the final paragraph which reminds me I don’t need the answers just the willingness to surrender to my body once again.

I love how you surrendered and trusted what you had felt and let go of how your mind was trying to run the show. I can relate to that feeling or pressure and nervous tension especially when I feel I don’t have enough time. Yet when I let my body be I seem to have all the time in the world to do what needs to be done and I feel energised and lovely doing it.

Yes, I have found that as well, Rachel: when I let my body take over, time expands and there is plenty of space to get everything done. Then I have to be aware that I don’t get hooked on it going so well and trying to squeeze a little bit more ‘doing’ in, thereby letting my mind and its expectations and ideals take over once more. It is quite a strong pattern, as I have noticed, this need to be forever d-o-i-n-g more and more.

This was so beautiful to read Gabrielle, as I have followed this pattern so many evenings. Not listening initially to my body, going off to do something, ending up in my head and then loosing that feeling you mentioned, iI know it well. So your blog has been an amazing reminder to honour that feeling, but also if you don’t, know that you can reconnect and again settle into your body and feel it once again. Mmmm, it is a great feeling.

Indeed it is a great feeling to be with our body, and the choice we have all the time to connect. I find this choice is my inner freedom I can come home anytime, no one is there judging me for not being perfect. I love this way of living.

Hi Gabrielle, I love this blog, it made me smile as I can relate to so much, not just in my evening routine, but also in the working day when I can get caught up in the stress and thoughts in my head, loosing that lovely and natural joy and connection I have with my body, and the simplicity and flow of the day or evening that follows this. I can just feel how amazing it would be and what a difference it would make to every body’s lives if we lived in this way, listening to our body.

What I also love is your last paragraph, as it made me smile, with the absolute simplicity on offer, and a little ouch if I tell the truth as I realised wow how often I give myself an hard time, tell myself off, or a big one for me is trying too much – which in truth just keeps us in in the cycle of being in our heads. I love how you share that it is as simple as to ” trust ” and “give permission” to whatever is there to be there. This can be applied to many areas of our lives.

What I feel from reading this blog is how we can make life so complex and look for solutions or ways to fix things from our head. When in truth life is and can be in fact very very simple, when we choose to listen to our bodies and honour what we feel.

A very helpful and supportive blog, thank you Gabriele. I have an issue with self discipline around bedtime and with dealing with those emails that just came in etc so this has given me some wider things to look at around this. For me it is about catching the mind out when it tries to tell me I will be fine if I quickly fit this or that in before retiring to bed.

Yes, it is just a question of connecting to the body without any hardness or must-do, have-to or else! That kind of discipline where we take ourselves to task just ingrains the mind-full way of living and does not honour the body and what is really going on.

When re-reading your blog Gabrielle I really felt your last sentences.
“All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there. I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there. And before I knew it I had fallen asleep. Very simple and oh, so profound.” Most of the times when I feel disconnected I try to get the connection back instead of trusting that my body knows what to do. Thank you!

It’s all to easy to get entrapped by technology and social media just before we retire to bed. Once done, I find the mind takes over and it can stop my otherwise gentle slide into sleep. So thanks for describing how you brought yourself back from the brink, having lost your connection to your body’s signals. I’ll definitely be trying that.

Awesome blog and great reminder. I am still working on allowing myself to feel and honour the tiredness in full. It´s work in progress and I become more and more aware how big the impact of my evening routine is on the quality of my sleep. And that in turn determines the quality of the next day. With your lovely reminder I will explore it even further.

Thank you Gabriele, a lovely sharing that I can feel along with and share your experience and decision making. It is so supportive and confirming to feel how lovingly I too can manage these real life situations in a truly loving and sensitive way with myself. No giving myself a hard time, just taking a direct route back to love again, and trusting in myself.

Such wonderful awareness Gabrielle, so simple. I also have found it easy to override what my body feels, easy using the TV or computer and of course my mind supplying all the justification I needed to fool myself. As I pay more attention to my body, less sleep is required, less food is required, no TV is required and gradually more energy is found. None of that makes sense to my mind, kinda OK with that now.

I love your down to earth and tongue in cheek account – it can be nearly too simple to be true, is what I am picking up between the lines. Why do we seem to favour complications and conundrums over the simplicity of what you describe? It doesn’t make any sense and yet, it can seem a tenacious habit to break.

Wonderful observation Gabriele. How easy it can be to go from being connected to what our body is telling us, then go into the ‘doing’, and immediately be disconnected from what the body was telling us just a moment before! The absolute joy of listening to the body teaches us to be true to ourselves. Beautiful.

Thank you Gabriele for your wonderful sharing, there are many times for me when I feel to go to bed and I allow something to pull me away from doing so; but, I am now learning to listen to and feel my body more.

I love how you describe the bank of fog that came over you Gabrielle, and the coldness of that. This is exactly what I feel. When this happens we can go either way – choose to re-connect with our body or be convinced of all the thoughts that we are being bombarded with. Thank you so much for writing on this topic.

Wow, that is so powerful to read. That was a wake up call for me. I often feel cosy and warm and ready for bed, then check a few emails, get caught up in work and bang – I’m not tired anymore! I had been kidding myself as to the reason. Thank you for bringing that awareness!!

Thank you Gabriele for sharing this with me. It is lovely to be connected with my body and to feel that it is tired and to honour this and how astonishing is it that it is that easy for me to ignore this feeling, as you did, by going into doing. Yesterday I had such an evening with sudden e-mails that ‘needed’ direct action from me. After dinner I really felt that I would love to go to bed early and to take time to lovingly turn down. I only had to complete some minor things on my computer and there I found these ‘needy’ e-mails I felt I had to respond to. This made me to disconnect from what I had felt before and did not go to bed as early as I intended to do. Before I actually went to bed I realised (just as an observation, not as a judgement to myself) what I had done and this made it possible for me to reconnect with the feeling that my body needs to be nurtured and put to rest. This morning I woke up fresh, connected and with a joyful feeling inside, ready for another amazing day. How simple life can be when I learn to appreciate the messages from my body and by honouring them as being my guide for a vital and joyful life.

Our experiences feel very similar indeed: ignore what the body is telling us and we get sidetracked; connect to what the body is showing us and what we feel to be true without judgment or guilt, and things are back on track and we get, as in both instances, a great night’s sleep.

Gabrielle I can totally relate to this. I can go into the to do list before going to bed and letting my head as you say” run the show.” I loved how you used the warm and cold for being with yourself and disengaging and going into your head. Brilliant.

Powerful blog Gabriele, thank you. Has been such a timely reminder for me as I have slipped some what into old patterns and been ignoring my body’s loving signals of when to stop. Appreciate your sharing.

I’ve had to stop looking at Facebook right before bed as this disconnected me from my body and how it was truly feeling. I noticed I couldn’t get off to sleep as easily and had to work on controlling my thoughts more. In stark contrast it has been fascinating to watch that whenever I read a book written by Serge Benhayon I fall off to sleep effortlessly and remember my dreams more clearly. The way of the livingness once again presents the truth via listening to how the body feels after different experiences.

Recently I made the same experience like you Tracy – when reading a book from Serge before I go to bed, then I can sleep very easily. The energy of Serge’s books is so amazing – they emanate such a high integrity and truth, I love it.

A beautiful blog Gabriele, I also know that gentle tired feeling and then the ‘head’ kicking in. Thank you for sharing it so clearly as it gives me great tips on how to feel the signs of the body and look out for the ‘game of the head’.

Thanks Gabrielle. I have also felt that tiredness in the body, the willingness to surrender to that and then a reminder of what needs to be done that takes me out of that delicious warmth into a raciness and hardness. I can now thankfully let go of the mental stuff and allow my body to surrender to what it truly needs……sleep.

I have long struggled with an overactive mind when I know I have a busy day ahead or haven’t finished something I had started and then try to go to sleep. It is quite a challenge to reclaim a connection with my body but when I am able to achieve this, the quality of my sleep is so much better. Thank you Gabrielle for bringing my awareness back to the basics!

Great blog Gabriele I love how you described the way in which you went back to sleep – with no judgement of how you had lost the warm sleepy feeling, but just to feel your body again. I know that when I have lost that sleepy feeling, it’s the frustration of losing it that makes it even harder to fall asleep!

I can definetely feel the warm of being tired. It used to happen when I watched TV before bed, then I used to continue watching and eventually I overrode the feeling so much that I would have trouble sleeping. Now I don’t wish to ignore that sleepy feeling – as you have stated, it feels yummy. If I’m tired now I’ll try to be gentle if I need to finish things before bed and try not to forget about that tired feeling. Great to know you can always come back to it.

Yes, you raise an important point that deserves to be confirmed. – once we have felt something in our body, we can go back to it because we have experienced it and know it to be true. And then we can build on that and deepen the connection further.

This is so powerful Esther and Gabriele to understand in so many areas of our lives – its trusting what we have felt in our bodies and reconnecting to that, if we have overridden it or ignored that initial feeling, knowing that it is still there.

I agree this knowing of something to be true even if you do not feel it for a moment is so powerful. I sometimes do not feel my loveliness and I am learning that through trusting and knowing it is still there I simply come back to it very quickly with out the trying really. Instead of going into reaction and trying to get it back and analysing that I might have done something wrong etc.

I also love that sleepy feeling and to just allow it to be there. I notice that I need some more sleep at the moment and I love going to bed around 8 pm, taking my time. Yesterday evening I had a sudden impulse to open my laptop again ten past 8 and I just stopped and felt my body and knew: no, no more laptop, that can wait till tomorrow, I am going to bed, write my diary and sleep. Simple choice, very loving towards me.

Since reading your blog. Gabriele, and re-reading it again, I have become much more present to how my body feels in the evening and to recognise that warm lovely feeling as the body’s expression of wanting sleep time. Thank you, I shall read it often to remember instead of doing this and that and the other, creating delay.

Gabriele, this blog needs to go viral. What you share here could replace millions of sleeping pills. I love the part when you say you didn’t try to reconnect, but just trusted your body. Definitely a share on social media coming up! Thank you, I enjoyed re reading blog.

I love your blog Gabriele thank you for writing it. I know that lovely warm sleepy feeling and can still override it with “this or that needs doing now!” and then I can toss and turn – this is a lovely reminder to honour our bodies, I’m always thankful in the mornings when I have.

I had a full on day yesterday and felt a lot of tension in my body before going to sleep. I purposefully took a lot of time to settle myself, breath, connect and relax before sleeping and it made a huge difference to how I felt when I woke up. Often when I have not chosen to feel my body and connect to my breath when stressed, I have woken the next morning un-refreshed and feeling terrible. It makes such a difference making the time to settle before sleeping!

How lovely! With such ease you cut through the cold fog of misleading thoughts and just trusted what you had felt in your body. This same technique helps me to avoid discussions with friends or my partner to stop the momentum, when it could also go in the direction of a false debate.

I could so relate to that lovely warm sleepy feeling you speak of Gabriele, and how when I ignore that and stimulate myself with busyness or watching TV, that I start to believe it is not there anymore… so this line is a wonderful reminder to re-connect and feel where my body is in truth – “All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.”

Gabriele you have explained how precious are those moments when we stop and feel and honour our bodies. It really is that simple isn’t it? To allow our bodies to rest when tired, and to put ourselves to bed gently, ensures we wake fresh the next morning.

What a lovely blog Gabriele and one that I can totally relate to. I have been the master of ignoring my tiredness and to do so, developed many ways of distraction, none of which were truly caring of me. In the last few years I have been choosing to change this love-less behaviour, and slowly but surely it is becoming easier and my evening is now a much more gentle time – well, most of the time. It’s still a work in progress; but one I am committed, to as it’s very yummy to be with me.

Thank you Gabriele, I agree it may sound simple what you described but also very profound, about trusting our bodies innate wisdom and not trying to fix sleep from our heads. I’m going to give it a try.

The title was like a complete package in and of itself, Gabrielle….I loved it! I also loved the way you described what it felt like to be ‘out’ of the truth of your body and into your head, as these words helped me to understand what goes on for me at times. I’m off to bed now, and the warmth and truth of my body is a beautiful confirmation of my connection.

“All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there. I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there. And before I knew it I had fallen asleep. Very simple and oh, so profound.” …… so simply and powerfully expressed Gabriele.

Ooh Gabrielle, I loved reading this, right from seeing the title on my screen. I know that yummy end-of-working-day tired feeling you describe and it’s a great reminder that tiredness is not of itself a bad thing. I also know that head thing well and I very much appreciate the reflection that there is a way back from that, every time, if we just give ourselves the space to feel what’s there truly to be felt. Thank you.

I can so relate to feeling the preparation of putting my body to bed and then losing it. I can be pulled into social media and many thoughts come in around just check, you might have a message?, or what if someone liked your profile picture, and what if someone tagged you in something? All of this is just trying to distract me from the gorgeous, tender preparation and feelings I get by getting ready for bed.

I totally agree Johanne about how easy it is to allow the head to over ride the true messages that the body gives us. These days I choose to listen to my very intelligent body, as its messages are definitely much more loving than those from the mind that I used to allow to run me.

Thanks Johanne – from what I can feel my body definitely has more intelligence than my head; my mind has all the clever answers and the reasons why I should or just could be doing something, whereas my body has a steadiness and stillness that far surpasses anything that is going on in the think-factory.

I have also experienced this sudden awakeness after using the my computer at night and getting stirred up by all the things I thought I needed to get done. You really can kid yourself you are no longer tired as your mind is alert (but your body is unfeeling). Apart from not getting caught up in the drama of what needs doing etc, I will give it a try to just feel the tiredness that must be there.

Awesome Gabrielle. For me I sometimes fall into a pattern of overriding my initial feelings of tiredness to just do one more thing before I go to bed, which can throw me off balance. I am beginning to surrender to my own feelings in my body more and more and to honour what my body really needs, which is huge.

A great reminder to stop, feel and be with our bodies more. I too find myself disconnecting and going into the busyness of my mind, but when I choose me first, I find the quality of my sleep changes. Thanks for what you have offered here Gabriele, I feel there is so much more to be explored in it for me.

The last paragraph sums it up for me Gabriele. It is so easy when we feel we have made a detrimental choice to try and get back to where we were, but once it is gone that is not possible, and the more we try the more tension we make. I love the way you knew just what your body was asking of you even though you could not feel it any more, and just went ahead and trusted the outcome.

It is beautiful how our bodies can reconnect so easily, and just make sure we have all the time we need. And what you also greatly describe, how things we have an anxiety for, are making us loose the feeling with our body and get cold and awful actually. It is great that we can connect so easily again!

As I am getting ready to prepare for bed very soon, I can feel how pertinent this is for me to read. I also have a tendency to feel the warm tired feeling and then do ‘just one more thing’ which can easily tip me over the edge and away from sleep. As you rightly say, listening to the subtlety of the bodies messages can make such a big difference. Such a simple tool applied without need for outcome or any beating up of oneself and it works wonders.I love the way you wrote that the tiredness must still be there in the body. Light bulb for me. Of course it must. Reconnecting is the key.

Gabrielle, what you write here is quite profound. I felt myself moved to tears as I read it. So many things stood out when I read this with a key one being the reminder that there is so much for us to learn/see in any one given moment if we tune in and surrender to what’s there without any judgement/expectations and then we can clearly see what is going on. By allowing yourself to feel your warm and lovely tiredness, and then experience what happens next – you had the marker for of what is true and what is not. I have lived for so many years in the latter – the ‘oh I’ll just do one more thing’ and override what my body is truly feeling and I was exhausted by it. Thinking there was no other way either. But as I learn to listen to my body more and more, this drive is lessening and I am more vital.

I am in Hong Kong at the moment and arrived yesterday for only 2 days. I could feel the pressure I was putting on myself to ‘see and do Hong Kong” and to get out amongst it. But my body was tired and it needed to rest after an overnight flight. So after a bit of mental ping-pong, I settled in to where I was truly at (tired and needing to rest) and not where I thought I wanted to be (out and about having a FAB time in HK) and I rested and took it easy. It’s pretty cool isn’t it!

Yes, that is really cool – and especially with the added pressure of being in a new and interesting place whilst everything is screaming at you to make the best of the opportunity; but then, the body always knows best.

I’ve had a similar experience of both overriding or accepting the feeling of being tired.
I too can relate when responding to the body’s natural call and respecting them, things just seem to ‘work out’.
Its like the body has an intelligence of its own.
On the flip side I can relate to the cold unawareness of what my body was once telling me but would now be overridden by the mind’s activity and thinking what I needed to do the next day.

And what if the intelligence of the body actually turns out to be the true intelligence that we all have equally and that we can draw on, much more potent and all encompassing than what our minds can come up with and try to persuade us with?

Yes, the mental ping-pong between what we think we should do and what the body asks of us can be pretty intense at times, but it is always worth listening to the body, in my experience. Giving in to the mental constructs only provides a momentary kick and elation that is not sustainable and leads to more exhaustion, plus all sorts of unexpected complications and twists and turns. It’s actually not worth it, no matter how many times I might try.

Thanks Gabriele for such a detailed description of the subtleties of ignoring tiredness and pushing on, and also of then choosing to trust and listen to your body. I know from my experience too that if I ignore that lovely warm tired feeling that says ‘go to bed now’ and do even just a teensy bit more work, my eyes feel stuck open and ‘cold’, my nervous system re-engages, and the tired feeling goes out the window. Then I’d have a pretty bad night, except that now I can do what you do, and come back into my body and feel all of me first.

Beautiful Gabriele
A true lesson for us all to pause and take that moment to register how our bodies actually feel.
By the overuse of stimulants in today’s society it seems that many of us override the tiredness and use props such as coffee/tea, energy drinks , sugar, etc. to get us through.
Making choices to let those things go and allow ourselves to settle into a rhythm that supports us to rest when the opportunity arises, allows us to build a life full of vitality.
I know which one I’d prefer!

Interesting blog..I liked what you said about TRUST the knowing, that your body and the tiredness, had to still be there and before you knew it, you had fallen asleep. Let the body do what it needs to do naturally.

That’s beautiful, it’s such a lovely feeling when I honour my body when it’s tired. And it’s soooo soooo horrible when I dont. It’s almost like my body gives me the feeling and Knows exactly what to do. If I delay, get distracted or try rushing now knowing I’ll be in bed soon the lovely feeling goes and in comes the anxiety, racy head controlled way of living where my body is not considered. These nights if I don’t then stop to re-connect I never get a well rested sleep, and wake up feeling not quite right. From this point it is easy to get into a cycle of disregard. Just shows how important it is to stop, wind down and rest when our bodies need to. Of course I’m no where near perfect with this but what is important is bring the awareness to this so I can improve. So thank you.

Gabriele, I really enjoyed your honesty. The scenario can be a very familiar one in the evenings. Yes, I am feeling tired and will listen to this BUT I will just ‘do’ one more thing or check the computer and before we know it, we are connected to our computer and not ourselves. The brain absolutely loves this scenario before bed. How wonderful to read what you offered, it is very real and very practical. Thank you.

Hi Gabriele, allowing ourselves to feel the messages the body gives us all the time is so important and for me it can be so easy to override what it is telling me especially when I know I have a lot to do. Reading your blog was so clear on the importance of taking that time to feel where the body is at, so when I lose that feeling and go off into my head I will be aware of it and not just carrying on regardless.

A very clear description of what we all see ourselves doing I guess.
We live mostly above that level of feeling, nummning ourselves in different ways, tricks and patterns.
So lovely to read this. A beautifull reminder to check in with myself and where I am at.

Very simple and profound indeed Gabrielle! I am very glad Katerina asked you that question. I am always subtly berating myself before I go to sleep and/or waiting until I am so tired I just pass out. It makes absolute sense that this would affect the quality of my sleep and could explain why I often feel so tired.

I am looking forward to experiencing the warm tired feeling you describe and developing a more loving relationship with sleep and with me inspired by this blog.

I agree, the quality of sleep really suffers when I totally wear myself out. In the past, I used to think that sleep was sleep, but I can certainly feel the difference now. A dedicated winding down period without mental stimulation truly supports a restful and regenerating sleep without any feelings of tiredness on waking.

Claiming and honouring what we feel is and can be tricky, we are so used to not honouring what we feel, it is easier to just do what comes into our heads and not stop and feel if this is what our whole body is seeking. Thank you for this awesome reminder to stop and listen.

So true Reagan – it is so important to honor what we feel. I feel it has to do a lot with commitment. Do I choose to indulge in my thoughts or do I really take responsibility for everything I think, feel and do ?

Awesome! You have really described in words how I feel so often, on a weekly basis. My head is so very quick to take over my body as I look to the future constantly. This has been a real reminder of how I can come back to my body to ensure a quality sleep.

Gabriel this is very practical and shows that listening to the body can be a lovely thing, not a duty like we can often think. I can relate to the tiredness before sleep and succumbing to the urge to eat one more thing before bed or send that text.

Eating just before bed is another thing – this urge, seemingly coming from nowhere, to put something in my mouth as though I would otherwise not make it through the night. I have found that it is not so much about eating or not eating, but about feeling why I think I want to eat, what it is I am trying to avoid.

Gabriele, I love this blog and how you describe that head driven way we can be so quickly and easily – there is indeed a coldness in it, like we’re a disembodied head and all along the body is there ready and waiting if we stop and take the time to feel it – you reminded me of that just now.

This is a great reminder Gabriele, that once we feel something like tiredness in our bodies, it does not go away until we honour that feeling. Whilst we may think that over-riding it and moving on to more practical solutions is the answer you have presented how the body holds the ultimate truth.

I am learning how I prepare for sleep makes a complete difference to how I sleep and how I feel in the morning. Until I started to prepare, I had no idea of the impact it would make. A lovely reminder to listen and trust what our bodies share with us. Thank you.

Great point Samantha, and such an important part of setting up for the quality of sleep we will have. It’s almost like we should think about sleep being from the time we begin our wind down in our early evening possibly from the time we arrive home from work not from the time we close our eyes.

Just love this blog Gabriele – that warm cosy feeling the body gives you when it’s tired is really gorgeous – crazily I can override it and then a disastrous sleep ensues because I’ve stayed up later to ‘do’ a few more things! How you trusted your body and knew to honour it’s tiredness again later was great to read about, thank you for sharing.

This story to me is the real sleeping beauty. I love how you describe Gabriele the easygoing warmth of you. This sensation is something I am learning to cherish and like you notice and wonder why, when it is not there.

How perfect Gabrielle that I am reading this before going to bed. I appreciate the level of detail that you have gone to in your observations, there is much to learn from what you have written and much to learn from what our bodies tell us every moment of everyday.

Same for me Jen, feeling warm and tired while reading this blog is really confirming the feeling and in no way that I will loose it this evening. I go to bed now and put my body to sleep to prepare it for another beautiful day with me.

Sometimes life can feel so rushed, so pushed and strained. Like every last minute is taken up with something that needs to be done until collapse in bed is immanent, just to wake up the next day and do it all again. I loved reading how different and possible it is to have the space and time to still be active and complete the necessary tasks of the day whilst remaining respectful to the needs of our bodes.

Awesome blog Gabriele, I loved reading this and know this scenario. Choosing to honour what our body tells us just makes sense or a build up of ignoring that results in our body forcing us to stop with a cold, cut or worse, a disease. I love the way you chose to feel what you’d gone in to and from that simply choose the beauty we all are. Without judgement or recrimination, the ease of falling asleep just was. Gorgeous and something I’ll take in my back pocket with me today.

Great read Gabriele…
I became aware that, although I no longer watch telly and eat treats as a nightly (destructive) ritual, which I used to, I still have more refining to do when it comes to listening to and honouring my body.
Thanks for reminding me not to be hard on myself

Yes, it’s a great reminder Pernilla. We so often can chose to judge ourselves in how we are doing something, or we’re not doing enough (whatever the mind wants to run with) instead of appreciating that we have made some very loving choices for ourselves.

I love this blog, it is a great reminder to stop and make time for self before sleep. A great rhythm and routine preparing for sleep is very supportive to the body i find. When i ignore this rhythm, my body tells me straight away, something not right.

Gabriele I love the simplicity of what you share here – but profound. To allow ourselves to trust our bodies in the moment knowing that all that we need to do will come to us, rather than us going to it is a complete game changer for how we live our lives without the push, stress and investment of getting things done. To allow ourselves to simply feel and accept what is there to be felt takes practice as an adult and it is something I am still learning to do.

It takes practice and may sometimes be challenging, but I realize that the more and more I allow it, the more I feel like myself and without expectations, I become still… and this feels very beautiful.

I love that feeling of going to bed when you are ready to sleep instead of in the anxiousness of all you need to do the next day – the sleep is much more surrendered and you wake up with more energy like you have described. For me when I go to bed worrying about everything I have to do the next day I always then wake up exhausted.

It is quite bizarre how we can so easily expand the necessary energy needed to do something twice: first we think and worry about what lies ahead and then we deal with the anticipated event/circumstances when it/they happen – no wonder everybody is exhausted!

I just love this sharing Gabriele! I love how you describe your relationship with YOU. I’m now off to bed, trusting my body and its warmth to support my sleep, not the coldness of my thoughts and about what is ahead of me. Thank you!

Gabriele, I was really touched by your blog and the fineness of your perception. Thank you for describing this process in such detail – it helps me be more aware of what happens to me if I let myself project forward into the future. I cut off from my body and it is amazing how the natural tiredness seems to vanish though really it is covered over by the racy force of nervous energy.

This may not make the headlines but to me it is great news: ‘All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.’

I love the way you have fleshed out some of the finer details and contrasted “the racy force of nervous energy” with the natural and very warm tiredness of the physical body; depicting it like you have really shows how the mind can be like a tank or bulldozer against, over and above the messages and the overall feeling of the body.

It’s like the future is always trying to pull us there instead of being present in the moment we are in now. Then when we chose to let that force take us, there is an anxiety immediately of not being back in the moment with ourselves and we feel the separation from ourselves. From then on everything we do is done with that anxiety. Exhausting instead of just being yummily tired.

Re-reading the blog today it really struck me how subtle the messages can be and so how easy it is, if I am not taking time to be with me, to not feel or ignore those feelings. As you said ‘ I could have easily fooled myself into believing that I wasn’t tired at all.’ and I do wonder how often I have done this! Certainly something to ponder on.

Thanks Gabriele, a truly insightful article. I learned heaps from it. I recognize the coldness you spoke about when you went into your head and disconnected from your body. I know how awful that feels. Feeling connected to my body on the other hand feels lovely, warm and complete.

Yes Elizabeth, it’s wonderful how Gabrielle’s article lays everything out so clearly, down to the physical feeling of being warm and connected – in stark contrast to the coldness which begins to creep in as you go into your head. I’ve experienced this many times without actually clocking what was going on.

Thank you Gabriele, I just started to re-read your blog and this sentence stood out for me..
“All I could feel was that my head had become the most prominent part of me”, for someone like me who spends a lot of time in their head and is constantly working on re-connecting to my body this simple line says it all. When I have had an anxious day or not expressed myself I find myself in my head in the evening and then have trouble sleeping. Taking time out and re-connecting to my body certainly helps for a restful night.

Thank you for your sharing here Gabriele, I have felt a similar feeling before in the evenings but rather than feeling a coldness I feel a particular raciness creep in – I gained much insight as to how you addressed this by simply surrendering back into your warmth – it reminds me just to feel and not to give myself a hard time about what I think I should be feeling.

What wonderful sharing Gabriele of your experience winding down in the evening.
I can so relate to feeling what my body is telling me- it’s tired, and then in the next moment I realise I have things to do for tomorrow which aren’t done. In the past I would override my body and do what is needed to be done, despite what time it would take. Thank you for lovingly reminding me of how to honour the body and surrender to it in bed, and not let worrying thoughts get in . And trust that if work needs to be done for the next day, my body will naturally wake up in the morning earlier.

I love how you didn’t go into reaction but accept what was presented and was able to fall asleep. You also inspire me to deeply connect to my body as to when to go to bed. That warm and sleepy feeling that you describe feels to be the best sign our body is telling us to go to sleep.

How easy it is to push past the messages that our body is ready for sleep. It reminds me when babies are tired, the feelings of warmth and surrender, that can easily turn into crying, grumpiness and discontent when not honoured… Perhaps as adults we can become accustomed to that ‘cold’ feeling of being in our heads and think we are ok, when in fact we have numbed or stimulated ourselves to not feel what our body so desperately is asking for.
If we can do this before sleep, where else do we do this?

So true Kylie. I certainly know the feeling in my body when it is ready to surrender to the tiredness it feels and when I allow my thoughts to intervene. The grumpiness of the babe can turn into self criticism and frustration. I love how Gabriele tended to herself so lovingly, confirming herself all the way as one may a child. Beautiful.

Thank you Gabriele, for the reminder of how our body is always there communicating with us, and how when we ‘try’ to use our heads it actually can disconnect us from that. It was a great opportunity to sit and reflect on how my body is feeling today, without interpretation.

I enjoyed the very practical example of overriding the bodies natural tiredness, and what happened, but then still being able to go back to sleep quite easily. This does feel like a big deal because so many complain of going into nervous energy and finding it very difficult to sleep.

Thanks for the insightful blog. Honouring the tiredness is a tricky one. I know it. There is always something to do, just before really going to bed. I know the email situation quite well. You inspire me to observe myself in the coming week if I go to bed, when I feel tiredness and what I do instead….. For me it starts with becoming aware of it.

Absolutely, the awareness has to come first to create space for observation and room for change. Without it we just function inside the box called ‘normal’ and never question it, even though it feels awful.

“There was no weariness or exhaustion, no stress or duress, just an easygoing tiredness. My body felt warm, it felt like me and it felt right, familiar and quite lovely in its own way. An early night was definitely on the cards.” Thank you Gabrielle, it is great to listen to the body and not over-ride the feeling of tiredness with thoughts of a list of things we have to get done at a later date.

I can so relate to what you have written. When I override my body telling me I am tired and need to go to bed, a feeling of being disconnected occurs. I know I am tired but my mind takes over with things I should do so that my day tomorrow will be easier. Sometimes it’s a distraction I get hooked into. How’s that for not making sense, because always, without fail, I do not feel better in the morning, only more tired because I did not honour my body and go to bed when I felt to.

I have also found that doing more in the evening so the next day will be easier (apparently) is a big trap; it is fed by an anxiety about what lays ahead or could potentially eventuate, an anxiety that perpetuates itself relentlessly and leads to ever more exhaustion and discontent.

Re-reading this blog has been gorgeous, thank you Gabriele. Of note for me now is the coldness you speak of when we go into our minds and override our bodies feelings. I love that warm sleepy feeling my body gives me when sleep is needed, honouring this more will bring about a more self-loving rhythm for me.

No surprise that I chose to read this blog having experienced this very situation before bed last night, although I also went into resentment of what I had to do the next day as well as the anxiety of whether or not I could get through all that I had to in the morning. I also had felt the warmth of tiredness before getting a bit of a charge from the anxiousness in the evening. I wonder is that charge what people call their second wind?

I wonder too Libby, about what exactly is a second wind? I used to be pleased when my second wind came, so I could stay up later and not feel tired. But it doesn’t seem possible that the tiredness goes away. It must still be there, just hidden under different emotions.

Good point – the second wind feels like a rush of energy, fuelled by anxiety and nervous tension. And it gives the false sense of accomplishment and having made inroads into what’s ahead the following day. Meanwhile, the body still signals its tiredness and warmth but can get revved up to such a degree by all this activity that it can then hard to fall asleep.

Love the simplicity of this article Gabriele. I can really relate to what you have expressed, it is lovely to honour that lovely warm tired feeling in my body by having an early night, even though by some people’s standards the time I go to bed is always early. But even when I don’t get that yummy tired feeling I find being in bed and lights out before 9pm I will drift off into a sound sleep within a very short time, whereas if I go to bed later than nine, my mind can go into the activity of what I have to do the next day or I start thinking about what has happened during the day and I can lie awake for quite some time before going to sleep. Gently winding down before bedtime is so supportive and honouring for the body.

It is so easy to override the impulse of tiredness which is being communicated from our body and to carry on with the “list” of things we “need” to do before we go to bed! This is so dishonoring of our body and something I am learning to not override.
I love what you have written Gabriele.

I love this blog Gabriele because I could say “ditto ditto”. When that head of mine runs the show, I just forget that I felt tired earlier and had the thought about going to bed early to support my body.
Last week, I found myself working late in the office – very unusual but with summer time and sunset later, I think (in my head again) it’s ok. No it cleary is not. Why? because I always need extra sleep the next morning if this happens.
What works time and time again is going to bed early and rising early. That is normal for me and any deviation guarantees “feeling of being rushed sometime in the future (tomorrow), plus a hint of potential overwhelm and a real pressure around the assumed possibility of not being able to meet these new deadlines.”
This is not natural and this has no quality. Living this way cannot work and so I get back on track as I did yesterday with a 7pm sleep time so early rise was easy and back to my normal – no alarm clock needed. My body clock is my alarm clock – pun intended.

Thanks Gabrielle, it’s so great to understand the subtle and not-so-subtle ways we bull-doze over what the body is telling us by kicking in with mental or nervous energy or some form of drive or distraction on the computer late at night. I can also see how this can used as a form of deliberate sabotage that results in insomnia or poor sleep making it difficult to function the next morning, starting a spiral downwards into exhaustion and anxiety as we also cannot function properly at work. Slowly I am learning that honouring the body’s natural sleep rhythms, can ‘miraculously’ bring much greater vitality and bounce into my days.

I love your very detailed description of what happens when the mind, in its expectation and focus on doing and deadlines, enters to override the warmth and cosiness of the physical body. I find it inspiring how simply you were able to re connect with your body when you accepted what had occurred without self judgement. Thank you, Gabriele.

I am so glad Katerina asked you what happened after the semi-colon, that is gold.
It is so easy to go into trying to go to sleep, letting the head run the show as you say. Just stopping and connecting back and feeling how the body actually is and letting it be that way knowing that the warm tired feeling is actually still there feels so nurturing. I love this blog.

A deeply honouring of one body account, thank you Gabriele, it feels that our body’s have such a deep intrinsic wisdom and knowing. Should we choose to stop and listen to what they are telling us, rather than wait for them to stop us (as with illness and disease) then we are forced to listen.

So true Thomas – when we don’t listen to our body, it is getting worse and worse. So the best is to listen to the body to the best of our ability and to deal with all our unresolved issues. Nobody can do the healing for us, we have to reconnect to our body and heal ourselves.

This is amazing Gabriele, how easy it would have been to stay in your head causing a restless, sleepless night, with the old brain churning senselessly away overriding the body. This I have experienced often in the past. I’m definitely going to remember this if this ever happens to me again, which i’m sure it will.

Gabriele your description of the feeling in your body when your mind over rode your tiredness was so glorious. It really got me thinking about how little we’re actually aware of what’s going on. The mind really is such a slippery con man ! I have, in the past thought that I have got a ‘second wind’ in the evening but shall be more vigilant as to whether it is just my mind bringing its might over my body.

Great observation – it feels that this ‘second wind’ can only be a raciness or re-engagement with the world and its affairs and then the de-light with the achievements adds more fuel to it and bingo, no more tiredness (apparently!) and a restless night, is my experience.

This is such a delicate awareness that you have shared Gabriele. It is so easy to ignore the subtleties of our body, that beautiful warm tiredness can be swamped when our mind gets caught up in activity and stimulation. I have done the same too many times to count.

What I particularly loved reading was the way you did not tell yourself off – this is a lesson I will take to heart as it is a trap I fall into. The second thing was that you did not try to re-connect, placing yourself under pressure to recapture the feeling. You trusted that it was there, and that was enough. Love it. It is a hand over to the innate wisdom of the body.
Thank you Gabriele for handing me at least two tools that I can bring to sleep and so many other areas of my life.

In reading this I can feel how important it is to trust that all the time needed is there the next day to complete the tasks that are sitting there and allow my body time to wind down. Too many times I have responded to emails as I felt they needed answered, yet it was awesome to read Gabrielle of how you trusted in yourself and put the feelers out to allow yourself to connect to your tiredness and drift into sleep. This feels like a great technique to develop.

Yes, when I do things to make inroads into the next day’s workload, it is purely out of a sense of anxiousness and the expectation that I won’t have enough time for it; it actually doesn’t work and only reinforces and confirms the anxiousness, the very thing I am trying to beat.

Yes Stephen, it’s interesting that we can get so caught up in getting things done in order to make things “easier” for us the next day – but this is done at the expense of the very thing that will totally support us to deal with whatever comes our way – allowing our body the opportunity to wind down and truly rest.

Great article Gabriele thank you. This is just what I was looking for in my sleep patterns. I have done this as well, where you have a ‘nice’ tired sitting in your body and just as you are getting to bed you loose it somewhere. Most of the time you can try and track where you have lost it but the simplicity you offer here is simply to connect back to yourself and allow yourself to ‘find’ the tired again. I loved this beautifully simple message that I will take to bed with me, thank you again Gabriele.

Thank you Gabrielle for sharing this great blog. What you have presented is a big deal but also it is not, just a matter of not staying in the head and reconnecting to what is – what better way than to allow yourself to be in your body?

There is no better way than being in the body, it is the most honest and immediate feedback we could ever wish for – even if and especially when what we are feeling goes against our ideals, beliefs and all the notions of how it should otherwise be. Physicality is amazing like that.

Your article is definitely one that is for reading again & again.
I noticed with my kids, once they got past a certain
time at night when they were ready for sleeping, eek, they were
in overdrive and a lot harder to settle.

Another reminder for me Gabriele that it is so easy to override the feelings in our bodies with the doing in our heads! The wind down period for sleep is so important but can be easily be sabotaged by our thoughts.

I can totally relate to naturally feeling tired and then my mind goes into all the things I need to do for tomorrow, and consequently not being able to sleep, and feeling wound up.
I then do some esoteric yoga to reconnect back to me , and gently breathe my own breath.

Beautiful awareness and discovery of the awesomeness of honouring your natural rhythm and sleeps a wonderful part of that. Connecting with ourselves truly, though learning our rhythm being honest and feeling are so important to maintaining our well being.

An amazing scientific observation Gabriele of being connected to your body and the preparation that is lovingly chosen to truly nurture oneself. It would be great if my science class at school was that informative.

“So simple and yet so profound”. When we let go of all the doing and embrace the being life becomes simpler then truly simple. It is an amazing fact I am slowly coming to feel in my body. Thank you Gabrielle.

Thank you Gabriele. I have found that the quality of my sleep is much improved when I gently wind down in the evening without allowing my mind to press the ‘to do’ button. If I succumb to the attraction of ‘just checking’ with emails I can feel my body winding up again which can cause me to get exhausted rather than just feel tired at the end of my day. Setting the alarm early to deal with whatever is there takes away the pressure and if the ‘to do’ list is short then I have time and space for other things.

I agree, there is no ‘just checking’ or ‘just this or that’; whatever the ‘just’ is, it takes you right out of the winding down rhythm which goes to show that everything counts, even if and especially when the mind tries to downplay it as insignificant.

Wow Gabrielle, this blog is incredibly profound. Sleep is such a huge issue for so many people and what you present here I am sure many could relate to – the feeling of being tired, the natural shutting down at the end of the day – that somehow disappears when there is a task to be completed, a phonecall, an urgent email to attend to – whenever we get back into “doing” the natural pull to repose is lost. And then the stress can set in of how you are going to get to sleep now you no longer feel tired. But what I love about your blog is you illustrate that all is not lost, that we can choose to reconnect to this feeling, to be gentle with ourselves, to let go of the doing and get out of our heads (and into bed!).

How insightful Gabriele, the connection with your body, disconnection through busyness such that you no longer felt the tiredness, then back to re-connection. Your post deepens the relationship there is to be had, and enjoyed with sleep, something I’m going to take note of more closely, thank you.

I loved what you said here Gabriele about knowing that your body was tired and even though you clocked that you were not aware of it in that moment you put out some feelers anyway. Very inspiring of when having clocked a marker in our bodies, for me I am reminded of a feeling of being open without holding back, that it is still there, we just have to be willing to connect back to it! Thank you so much.

It is amazing how if we don’t waste energy on ‘telling ourselves off’ or ‘trying’ to reconnect and instead just listen to our bodies, the message is loud and clear and we are then able to fall into a deep restful sleep – perfect!

The ‘secret’ which is no secret really is not to tell ourselves off, as you mention. I find that this always applies, and also during the day when I think I might like to focus on what I haven’t done or what doesn’t feel right; it is one thing to acknowledge something, but totally another to dwell on it and tell ourselves off. The latter just leads to more stress and tightness in the body.

I love this blog and what you share here about what our bodies show us. I particularly love that you say “I knew that my body must still be tired but I couldn’t feel it anymore.” There are many times when we feel something then don’t feel it anymore yet the situation actually hasn’t changed – but in these situations we have overridden the feeling – and pushed it out of the way and can no longer feel it. Brilliant that you came back to that in your honesty and self awareness.

I love your bog Gabrielle and I am still relearning the importance of connecting and falling asleep with nothing other then myself. I have late night meetings and tend to go to bed either with those or with the first thing on the agenda the next day. Your blog has inspired me to set my alarm for the next day if needed before I start to unwind so that when I go to bed there is nothing left to do but nurture, tuck myself in and surrender into sleep.

Thank you Gabriele for sharing your experience. It is so suttle but the results are profound. The attention to the slightest details and awareness of this can have such a profound result in the quality of your sleep and in the quality of how you wake up. Another piece of gold in your story is how the simple acknowledgement of giving your body permission to be there. You gave your body the authority in its validation. Simply beautiful.

That feels like a great and very loving program; not waking up with everything that needs doing crowding our mind really begins the day before and how we put ourselves to bed. As I have heard in Universal Medicine presentations many times, the day starts at 9pm the previous evening and I can certainly feel the truth of that in my body and my work rhythms.

I am so glad you wrote this blog Gabriele. What you experienced is profound even though it sounds so simple. Because it is simple we can often dismiss these ‘little’ miracles. To trust what you felt in your body over what you think is huge. I have also experienced the sudden turn around of tiredness after having checked in on the computer. I loved that you didn’t beat yourself up for losing the warmth or try to get it back. The ease of just trusting feels wonderful, and so simple.

When we override what we feel in the body, we lose ourselves, we lose the connection with what we feel. The disengaged coldness gets in charge. At this point reacting and going into self-loathing is fairly simple. Yet, the trusting option sounds much better to me. Beautiful sharing Gabriele.

Thank you Gabriele for this oh so precious gem. I have recently been connecting deeper to my body and discovering just how much I override what is there to be felt. In the old days I used to override with food, caffeine, alcohol, emotions and all sorts of things. One by one I gave them up and have become aware of more and more seemingly subtle things that I do with the same effect to override my body. Your example is fantastic and I certainly find work and emails to be a major way to mask feeling how tired my body truly is at times. I really love what you wrote and how you described your initial warm easygoing tiredness and how you connected to that as a marker.

You remind me of how important that bodily felt marker was, the warm and trusted feeling of tiredness; without it and without the awareness of it, I would have probably followed my mind and concluded that I was alert and ready for more action! And I would have missed feeling the difference between the former warmth and snugness and the latter coldness.

Gabriele, I love your blog, because I know this situation so well and especially to work with the computer, feel the pressure of finishing articles and writing emails in time, brings me easily into this coldness.
Thank you very much for your contribution and the sharing that there is another way.

I agree, it is very easy to still be doing the same thing, repeat the same pattern of overriding the body with evermore subtle ruses and tricks. But I also find that as long as the willingness to keep refining the winding down rhythm is there and I am honest about what is truly happening, I am moving in the right direction and my evenings and nights feel more and more yummy.

Beautiful blog, thank you Gabriele and so poignant for me right now. I have had several nights just like you describe – why haven’t I been connecting with my body more at these times? It is such a simple and fail-safe thing to do. Your last reply to a comment is very confirming and inspiring – ” I also find that as long as the willingness to keep refining the winding down rhythm is there and I am honest about what is truly happening, I am moving in the right direction and my evenings and nights feel more and more yummy.”

wow, Gabriela, what a beautiful experience and sharing, how to let go of any try from the head to change the situation and keep on trusting the body. What a key moment to choose the body even without having the contact. Knowing and trusting that this is true – instead of the coldness that was emanating from the thoughts around time-pressure. It is like not believing a lie that is told – because the truth was already felt. Thank you for this inspiring sharing, it helps me at once to make my decision, and not “believe” at all in that kind of coldness in thoughts, coming through the head, while I am disconnected. I also love to see the picture from this blog, it supports the same choice, you wrote about.

Yes, the picture is gorgeous, I agree. And you make a great point about the difference between the coldness of the thought process and the truth and warmth of the body that had to be still there, even if it got momentarily swamped.

From what you shared I became more aware of how I went to sleep last night as I had to work late and then just went to bed. I was still quite awake and even though I was tired, I was restless. I just kind of passed out and this morning I woke up exhausted because I can feel my sleep didn’t have the quality in it, I didn’t put my body asleep to deeply rest, it was more like I ran a marathon during the night.

Gabriele, I know my reaction about being dis-connected is more of a killer than being dis-connected and being honest and just know there is this connection and stay with what is there, truly inspirational to read.

This was brilliant to read Gabriele, it is so telling how so many of us override feeling how our bodies really are, I remember a long time ago when my daughter got moved to our lounge and so I didn’t have the TV to distract me at the time and it was amazing how tired I really was at 7 pm, which I hadn’t allowed myself to feel.

Today will be a particularly stressful and busy day at work but if I stay in my presence and connect with my body I know I will come home tonight not feeling depleted of energy. Away with unreasonable expectations and trying to fix everything. Simplicity and commitment to feeling what is right for me are the counterpoints to overwhelm.

Hear hear – I can so relate to both Patricia and you Gabriele – and it really is conscious presence, and being aware of the games the head wants to play – and nipping it in the bud as soon as recognised as such.

I know that feeling well Gabriele of a mental stimulation which makes me think am not tired when really I am just not in my body feeling. Great awareness you are sharing here and it brings more inspiration each time I read it to work with my bed times! Interesting also that at times I have to stay up late with work, how I am able to choose to really stay connected and allow myself to feel tired and still get work done. It feels lovely at this time to take every opportunity to close my eyes and be really still – even if just for a few seconds between work tasks – honouring the tiredness is the way to go for sure.

Thank you for the inspiration on how to maintain the connection with the body when having to work late; I can find it especially easy then to get carried away by a doing kind of momentum which makes it difficult to go to sleep straight away, and I will remember what you have suggested next time it happens.

Very inspiring Simon – especially your words “to take every opportunity to close my eyes and be really still”. It is so important to stay connected and to honor the body, and we have so many opportunities to do that. I love it how you support your body, when you have to work late.

A gentle blog with a powerful message, one that clearly highlights how the body if listened to reveals exactly what is required to maintain our gentle rhythms but, when we let our heads dictate the rules we can so easily lose ourselves back into the ‘doing’ of life. Thank you Gabriele a lovely sharing.

Gabriele, our bodies know and all we need to do is give ourselves permission to feel, no matter how much we’ve lost a connection earlier. This is huge, I often get lost in my head and feel that cold hard alertness you speak of, but at any moment I can feel my body again, I don’t have to make a big deal of the disconnection, I just allow myself to connect and feel – thank you I understand why there are no words after that semi-colon – it really is that simple and profound.

Reconnecting to the body and what it shows us is as simple as you describe, and especially so when we don’t go hard and judgmental for having lost that connection in the first place. After all, it is actually great to notice the disconnection at all – a few years ago and without the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom, who would know any better?

Another profound contribution Gabrielle. There IS so much to celebrate isn’t there in what we do notice and so much to appreciate and rejoice that this awareness of disconnection is largely thanks to the teachings of the Ageless Wisdom and the familiarity with connection it has shown us. We live in a truly incredible time yet far too often my focus is absorbed and identified with the what is not rather than my body and the Glory of what is.

So many times in the past I would of let my head rule the situation and delay a much needed restful, healing sleep. Giving myself a hard time of how I felt the next day too. This achieves nothing – but to ‘trust’ that inner knowing and gently go with that flow – amazing. A beautiful sharing Gabriele.

Beautiful Gabriele. Instead of holding onto the anxiousness and stressing about tomorrow, you decided that it was more important to go to sleep gently and trusting that everything will be okay in the morning. Thats one thing that comes to mind when I think about going to sleep, trust. If we think about going to bed, our body doesn’t go anywhere, so its an opportunity to go to restore, re-breathe and expand.

I love how you put that Harrison – I am the same, I rather go to bed when the body tells me to and deal with other things the next day, refreshed and well rested, than pushing ahead just to get it done. The quality in doing of what needs to be done will be markedly different.

There are times where going to sleep is easy and there are times when things are happening as you described it, Gabriele.
When I was a teenager, I can remember a period where I was able to go to bed, read a bit, switch off the light, role to the side and sleep. These were times where what happened during the day had no influence on me and my thoughts. I just knew, I need and want to sleep and I did it. Following your advice, I say ‘Good night..’ and go to bed trustfully.

If we can live in a way that doesn’t leave anything unfinished energetically, then it is very easy to sleep – makes me wonder whether that is easier as a young person when we generally don’t carry so much ballast around with us?

Perfect timing reading this for me Gabriele. I have been particularly tired over the last few weeks. Work has been extremely busy and I’m finding some nights difficult to get to sleep despite how tired I am. I have been doing exactly what you did here, and checking my emails etc before going to sleep, which I know I actually don’t need to do. I have also been giving myself a hard time for not being able to fall asleep and have been forcing myself to ‘reconnect’ which is impossibe when that amount of pressure is hovering over me to do so.
I will try this approach, accepting where my body is at and just allowing it to be.
Thank you.

Gabriele, beautifully written, there have been times when I have been tired and ready for bed and just before I head up the stairs there’s a little voice that says, “Oh you had better do that” and I am distracted in a split second. Now the voice in my head is much quieter and my sleep much deeper and restful than before.

Gabriele what you have written about is ‘oh so profound’ and the sharing of your experience resonates with so much inspiration and confirmation of what I also have experienced in my body. You describe something very familiar to me – being with my body only to be ‘taken out’ by thoughts and overwhelm of having more to do than time to do it in. I find this takes me so far from my body, presence and connection – I am left floundering. It is so tempting when this happens to ‘try’ to reconnect as would seem like the obvious solution so I love how you didn’t even ‘try’ and rather came back to your body by putting your feelers out and trusting your body knows exactly where it is at even if not consciously registering it.

Hi Gabriele, Thank you, the title of your blog made me melt as I surrender to having experienced the beauty of that before. A big marker I have had recently was getting into bed, lying in bed and just feeling me, not thinking about anything, or worried about anything or being hard on myself for anything. But I just felt my warmth, and me and it was so very profound. Thank you for also confirming this way.

Thank you for this beautiful blog Gabriele. ‘I could have easily fooled myself into believing that I wasn’t tired at all.’ That is what we do isn’t it, overriding the messages of our body thinking we must do this, must do that. ‘an amazing experience of the truth of my body and the disengaged coldness of an otherwise different choice’ How wonderful to just surrender to the truth of our body.

It is as though the mind is a veritable dictator, dictating to the body how it should behave, what it needs to do and how and when to do it, regardless of the physical signs and symptoms the body so openly communicates.

Just the other day I had got caught up with people and did not realise I ignored the signs of being tired and I should go to bed. This was a hugh impact on my body as the next day it was a real struggle, I felt uncomfortable in my body and mood felt low, and body temperature had dropped. By 7pm that evening I was so tired and feeling very cold, at this point I had to honour my body, I warmed up my room and snuggled into bed, within minutes I was fast a sleep. I woke recharged and my body returned back to its warmth. The biggest sign for me in my body is when it looses its warmth, that is signal how my body is tired.

‘All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.’ This is so simple and yet so profound and something I will remember next time I get sucked into doing just one more thing before bedtime and ending up making myself late and affecting the quality of my wind-down time and subsequently my sleep. Thank you Gabriele this is so supportive.

Loved your blog Gabriele. It also amazes me how my head can take over, if I let it, and the lovely connection with my body just disappears. It is inspirational how you just observed what happened after your head took over, and didn’t beat your self up on it. Also the way to reconnect back was lovely to read in its gentle loving way.

Great blog Gabrielle. Lovely to experience the simplicity of your writing – in that you’ve not over complicated a simple thing: choosing to feel your body, when your head became a bit too active before going to sleep.

It is so stunning what scenarios our head can feed us that can well be mistaken for reality – like a movie in 3D.
What truly helps is to remember how we feel and act if we are truly with ourselves and at ease – and suddenly the movie will be switched off.

When we take those gentle steps of being so finely in tune with our bodies – the gift we give ourselves in self nurturing are returned twofold. I ask myself why would I not want to snuggle down in the warm, rest my body and have a wonderful healing sleep. The opposite to that now seems quite absurd – but hey!!! the truth is that I did live like that for over 50 years. A lovely sharing Gabriele thank you.

Thank you Gabriele, for your succinct exposé of what our minds do when our body is clearly telling us we need to sleep. The overwhelm of things to do is something so many of us experience and the ill-effects on our bodies can run over several days, months and years. Being fully present in each moment and allowing ourselves to feel what is there and puts everything into perspective. That feeling of ‘gotta run’ that goes with deadlines actually slows us down and, as you discovered, when you make time to be with you, space opens up and everything gets done.

This is my experience too Carmel, space does seem to magically open up when I am truly present with myself. As soon as I feel any pressure to get going or force an action it is reduced and a tension comes in.

‘Gotta run’ does slow me down, you are quite right. Firstly it feels terrible and secondly I then make lots of mistakes that take far more time to fix and patch up than it would have taken me to do without the added pressure.

“All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there. I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there. And before I knew it I had fallen asleep. Very simple and oh, so profound.” So simple, yet so profound, yes, Gabriele. When my mind wants to take charge in the evening, especially when I have things that I need to complete, I have found that by gently letting go and staying with my body, my mind eventually gives up and I fall asleep. Once I give up on allowing time to dictate to me, space opens up to enable me to complete what is needed.

Lovely to re-visit your blog Gabrielle. The simplicity of feeling what our body is telling us and honouring that I have learnt is true medicine. But also the learning from we receive when we are open and aware of what our body is showing us when we override these messages. Life is so much richer when we are connected and aware.

Great article Gabriele, I love your words “all I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.” In honouring the truth and accepting what you felt, your body was able to naturally let go and wind down for sleep. A great reminder.

Today I feel so inspired by the honesty of the blogs I have read. I can absolutely relate to this experience with sleep. In the early evenings when my children are letting go of their day and preparing for sleep my body shouts “me too!” Frequently I override this call to sleep and return to my computer or paper work – an hour or two later I have this same cold disconnected feeling where my head feels like a soda stream. What inspires me Gabriele is how you did not go into further headiness with tactics or trying but allowed yourself to gently re-explore your body.

Which is something we can do during the day as well, not just when it is time to get ready for bed – stopping the soda stream in the head and connecting back to the tangible physical reality of the body.

Gabrielle, I could recognise when I was reading your blog that I have done that all my life. I have ignored my body telling me that I am tired and instead chose to stay up watching television with the view that it would relax me and I needed that wind down in front of the TV at night. It has taken me a long time to realise it but staying up to ‘relax’ made me feel worse. Listening to my bodies signals is key, as it certainly does communicate with me, loud and clear.

Me too Heidi, in the past I was overriding the signals of my body, and I can still feel the momentum of it today – I’m still very exhausted and tired. We pay a high price when we ignore the body. Now I know that the body is my best teacher I can ever find.

This is such a simple and powerful blog. The key for me is learning to trust my body that by listening to it everything will fall into place. I too have noticed that by going to bed when my body is tired how I feel so much more refreshed in the morning and get things done more efficiently. I had this belief and still can slip into it at times that if I got my tasks done before bed regardless of how my body was feeling, I would settle down to sleep more quickly. How wrong was I as I would wake up next morning feeling dreadful! In the long run it pays to listen to our body and reading a blog like this one is deeply inspiring to not only listen to my body when it’s time to go to bed but to listen to it throughout my day. Thank you Gabriele for sharing.

I can certainly relate to this belief system that I will be able to settle more easily if everything gets done, no matter how I am actually feeling or how tired I might be. And what a falsity that has proven to be as I rev myself up more and more to get through everything and how long it then takes to come out of the nervous energy and drive.

Gabrielle – I find your blog exquisite. The level of body connection, awareness and honouring of self are divine to me. I am amazed by how well you articulate your experience – again divine to me. I have had similar experiences/observations in the past to the one you describe and find your blog very confirming of all that I have observed/felt myself. I also find your blog very supportive and inspiring to continuously go deeper with the listening and honouring of the body – especially as you describe so well the beauty and truth that lies in such practice, and in that the contrast with the listening to the mind in disregard to the body.

So simple and oh so profound indeed! What you have described in this blog is what so many of us do every single day, time and time again – we feel something, and then we override it! I absolutely love how you were so aware of what was going on in your body, and without any perfection or judgement on yourself, you just trusted that your body knew best.

It is beautiful to feel your connection with your body Gabriele, thank you for sharing. How wise our bodies are and ever ready to communicate with us if we allow… and honour our connection with ourselves. Great to remember in every moment we have a choice to listen.

There is a definite pattern to my night time routine now – it is those little acts of kindness to myself that allow a gentleness to wash over me, prior to sleeping that is so important. Until I allowed self love back into my life there was no routine as such it was a little rushed and certainly not gentle and bed was something I fell into. Not gently laid down in and feeling every part of my body. Prior to a very healing sleep. Waking in the morning is a great barometer to the quality of my previous days in gentleness with me (or not). A beautiful sharing with us all Gabriele thank you.

I love the feeling of a good’s nights sleep. There was a period where I was finding some things challenging and I woke up each morning with my body totally tight and stressed. I was exhausted and felt like I hadn’t really slept. I so appreciate when you do take a moment to stop and check in with how you are feeling, your sleep is so much better after this.

I agree, it is quite incredible how much we can sleep without actually feeling refreshed or rested in any way. Just goes to show that it is the quality and not the quantity that counts, and that applies to just about everything.

This is a simple yet profound sharing Gabriele. It would be easy to become frustrated and then have the ensuing restless night’s sleep which would flow on into the next day but the way you approached and accepted the situation and then re-connected with your body is awesome.

It sounds so familiar to me what you are sharing Gabriele. When I feel tired in the evening it is so important to feel it and to go to bed. If I ignore it and I think, I should check the emails before I go to bed, I can easily loose my connection to my body, and that feels terrible.

Gabriele, you are so right. So simple yes but oh so profound. Sleep is a study barely looked into. It’s blogs like these that begin to uncover more depth and truth about what actually goes on for us regarding sleep and the patterns thereof. Profound Blog. Thank you!

Just gorgeous Gabriele, yes thank you for sharing what choices you made in between! I too have felt “not tired” at times when my mind has been in over-drive, and the quality of my sleep from going to bed racy versus taking myself gently is truly palpable. Plus I just adore that picture!

I know this situation very well, what you describe Gabriele. My body is very tired in the evening and I think I still have to check my emails. And then I can easily lose my connection to the tired part of my body. Slowly slowly I’m relearning not to rush and to stay connected to me more and more. Thank you for your amazing blog.

I agree, thinking that we need to engage with the world just before going to bed doesn’t work, no matter how often I have run this experiment. I always have a very good excuse, of course – but the fact is that it comes from an anxiety about the day ahead and whether I will be able to fit it all in and that then immediately throws me into nervous tension. And that is, as we all know, no basis for a good night’s sleep.

This blog is great reminder that if we simply stay with our bodies and give ourselves permission to observe what ever it is our body is telling us, that this is a power-full tool. By doing this we allow, observe and let the body clear what ever may be in the way. Simply acknowledging the feeling without judgement or self criticism and allowing the feeling to simply be there is all it takes to let something clear rather than be ignored and stored in our body as a stressor.

Expressed like this, the whole thing is actually super simple – acknowledging what is there to feel “without judgment or self-criticism” and then moving on, no need to look back or be dragged down in any way.

Gabriele – I have done this thousands of times even sometimes thinking that I miraculously overcame my tiredness late in the evening. There have been many nights where I had planned to party and actually felt tired sometimes in the early afternoon, but somehow managed to push through and with the support of alcohol was able to numb myself completely from feeling any distress in my body. The refinement and detail of what you have expressed I can feel that at these times of a seeming burst of energy in the evening, I am actually going into my head and just not connecting to the messages my body is giving me. Thank you for taking the time to write about this so clearly.

Reading this blog again today I am reminded of how easily I can make choices and get lost in emotions and pressures so that I simply don’t feel my body. With this awareness I can at least take heed the same way you did Gabrielle and put the ‘feelers out’ and hold an openness and space for my body to be listened to.

It is so easy to try and cram a lot into the time between getting home from work and going to bed. This is definitely something that I need to pay more attention to as I can feel the need to do less and be more of me in my wind down to sleep. A gorgeous sharing, Gabriele.

I can so relate to the yummy delicious feeling of a tiredness that also holds a beautiful invitation to be very close with yourself snuggled in bed. You seem to float off to sleep in this state. I also feel the same cold hardness you speak of Gabriele when our mind clicks back into top gear and takes us out of our natural yumminess. It’s something I find can happen very sneakily and quickly once I drop the awareness and acceptance that my body is my true guide through every moment. I’m also aware that the mind is like a force that always wants to take over and take me away from me. Power to the body I say with much love, care and appreciation of all the wisdom it holds waiting for us to come home to it.

It is amazing how un-practiced we can become at putting the feelers out and allowing us to feel what is there. That is certainly my experience, I can be exhausted yet sometimes struggle with sleep because I haven’t applied myself to feeling my body in the day just gone. It is amazing how easy it can be when we put the body first and don’t let the mind run away.

Ah yes! The need to check my phone and emails just before bed is a trap and it can absolutely take me away from that lovely natural surrendered state. I’m onto the distraction most of the time but when I’m not I can feel the slight dullness the next morning and it’s an ‘Oh yes that’s right’ moment as I realise I have been caught again.

The ‘unreal state of disembodied, strained and cold alertness’ captures perfectly what is felt when the mind runs the show. The profound difference between that and the warmth felt deeply within when connected to our bodies is truly remarkable…. And highlights the power of our choices, for which state we live in is up to us.

It is extraordinary how the mind can so quickly take over and completely detach our awareness from how the body is actually feeling. Gabrielle, I like the honesty in which you write and clearly see when it is your body talking and when your mind has taken over and how that feels. It’s no different when we are eating and lose touch with when we have had enough. Or when we are talking and suddenly find ourselves in a reaction. Or when we are working and find ourselves pushing to complete tasks on a list.

I like the parallels you draw between losing touch with the body when it is time to wind down for a good night’s sleep and the other situations you mention, i.e. disconnecting from the body while eating and when getting caught up in the momentum of work. Every time it is the body and our health that lose out.

Such a simple yet profound blog Gabriele.
‘Big deal? Yes, for me it was a big deal – an amazing experience of the truth of my body and the disengaged coldness of an otherwise different choice.’
Choosing to listen to the body rather than disconnecting and listening to the head. I am experiencing this each and every day. But I do know one thing. Choosing the body to be the ‘master’ sure does feel great. 🙂

It is great that you expose the subtle change that becomes not subtle at all, when you decide to check your emails and lose connection to your body, and then there is only the mind present there. I sometimes wish I could do things and not change my state of being, I could eat things and not change my state of being, or check emails or indulge in emotions or hold on to my past and not change my body and how it feels, but it actually changes, it does, and I need to recognize it as you do in your blog. And then choose to reconnect, simply.
I guess it is like the teenager that i was, thinking that I can do whatever I like and get away with it…If I love my body enough, and the way I feel is so yummy I don´t want to lose that for any fantasy, any indulgence, or any pleasure…then I look after my internal environment so well that whenever I feel i lose that warmth that you talk about, I let go of the rest and come back to that because THAT is like being home.

Great summary of what it feels like to reconnect and appreciate the natural warmth of the body again; and I love the way you describe the rebelliousness that can take over and make us think that everything is going to be okay and that we can get away with things when in truth – we actually can’t and we don’t.

Your blog for me Gabrielle is such a beautiful reminder to not look for expectations or outcomes; to let life flow without the mental energy that can so easily creep in.
Sleep for me can sometimes be a dig deal so I valued and appreciated your wisdom and you sharing your experiences.

I really love this blog. Your relationship with your body is inspirational Gabriele. I love the way you describe how you reconnected with the the truth in your body before you went to sleep as I could feel there was great tenderness in your approach.

Awesome to re-read your blog again Gabrielle, what stood out this time was the coldness you experienced, I to feel this when I’m tied sometimes and disconnected, its like a deep inner coldness in my bones, as my body feels warm on the outside, something for me to feel into what it is, thank you.

Its strange how when we go into our thoughts and head that the tiredness our body felt can seem to disappear, your blog shows me the importance of staying connected too and honoring my body, when I’m winding down in the evening before going to sleep.

I have been finding myself needing longer sleep for the last few days, and was pondering about the quality of sleep I am allowing myself. As I type this comment right now, in the afternoon, I am feeling that I am actually already preparing myself for the sleep this evening. It was perfect to read your post today. Thank you, Gabrielle.

Thank you Gabriele for clearly showing us how easily we can override the feelings of our body and go into our heads.
What was beautiful to read was your dedication and loving choice to honour your initial body’s message to go to bed early. And in doing so you woke up earlier than expected and all that was needed to do was accomplished with no need to stress or rush.

Overriding the body’s messages can easily become (seemingly) second nature when we are not connected to ourselves; we ignore them and then ignore them some more until they have to scream and shout a lot louder and possibly even have a medical label attached to them.

A key word here is ‘subtle’. The fact that Gabrielle was open to the subtleness of what her body felt like in amongst the cold fog without any personal judgement or criticism, is what makes this blog so tremendous.

I have those evenings where I don’t unwind properly and when my phone is a huge distraction. I notice it straight away when I lie down. I am all racy and with many thoughts. What helps me is to not blame myself or put myself off that i should have done it differently. This kind of bashing myself is even worse than the fact that I did not unwind.

Yes, I have found this as well – it is one thing to get something wrong and it is totally another thing to then go into self-criticism; the sane alternative really is to note what is not working and move on from there.

It’s so true that letting the mind run the show will deplete the body and stop us from feeling what is true and what we really need to do to be well. I have done this so often and didn’t realise that I had stopped feeling my body and my body’s gorgeous messages of truth. Instead I allowed myself to be convinced that I could rest while watching tv, which is a nonsense and stimulates so that there is no rest.
It’s such a clear account of what happens. Thanks Gabriele.

As you say, there is no true rest when we are being mentally stimulated. and Just being supine doesn’t mean that we are truly resting; we might be relaxing and enjoying the fact that we are off our feet, but deeply resting asks us to connect to the body and get very still.

This is such an accurate depiction of what can happen when we let our mind run the show – and go off on tangents! This can happen at any point in the day, but is most evident at night when we go to surrender deeper to sleep. This feeling at night time will be a marker for me, and a reminder to not let things run off during the day either. It places unnecessary strain on our bodies, so no wonder we get exhausted! Thank you for sharing your wisdom Gabriele.

It is so easy to be taken out of the connection that we have with our bodies before going to bed if we involve our selves with stimulating matter. I have lately realised the computer is one thing that does this and allowing myself about an hour before going to bed to wind down and nurture myself through the connection I have with my body is a beautiful way to enter bed and sleep.

Computers are a big one when it comes to being disconnected from our body and what is really going on; we are so used to giving the screen and what we do our full attention that is it very easy to check out, thinking all the while that it is just ‘light duty’ and won’t matter – but then we find out that it does, especially when it is time to wind down for bed.

And wake up in the morning!! I have a very very strong habit of spending my wind down time looking at a screen. It’s been an awfully difficult habit to break. I would very much like to give it another go…if I can begin to wake up in the mornings not feeling tired….what a miracle that would be alone!

That feels so important Gabrielle, not trying to re-connect, but actually be with whatever there is to feel and stay with that (not wondering off with our mind). Incredible powerful what you have shared. I instantly felt that I was letting my head go funny with a subject just when I was reading your blog, all I did was just being in the moment and not giving attention to those tension-ful thoughts, step by step the thoughts got less active and become less on the surface, I came to realize that it is how much power I give to those thoughts – that make them look strong and real , while in fact they are not. Cool experiment , I am up for more. Thank you Gabrielle.

Awesome Experiment Danna…I totally agree. I also love that Gabriele just allowed her thoughts to be there, but didn’t give in to them. I know this is something I find difficult…letting one thought merge into another, and then another.
Certainly a worthwhile experiment for me to give a go.

I am sure this has been a great lesson for you Gabriele, and for all of us. Most of us know the feeling of being rushed pressured, or on overwhelm of how to fit everything in to an already busy day. I loved how you described the connection you had, then the mental activity and the loss of that connection, and the cold feeling. What I learnt from your experience is to not ignore these things but not give into them, we have the power to reconnect and accept what there is to feel. I personally feel empowered by what you have shared Gabriele.

Great point – ignoring something doesn’t make it go away even though it might feel like it short-term, but it will invariably come around again even if under a different guise and with different stage props.

I agree Bernard. Having been a world class ‘doer’ all my life I still find it hard to slow myself down and allow myself to value what my body is sharing with me. What you have offered me Gabrielle is the understanding that this may still arise yet there is a choice to acknowledge it but to know that it can’t have the dominant say if I keep things simple and gently focused on allowing my body the space to become steady again.

After reading your comment Anne and feeling what my body is really stating so clearly (and not over rule that message) is to now switch off my computer and have a warm bath and gently prepare myself for a healing sleep.

‘I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there.’ Taking time to surrender and connect back to our body and how it feels offers us a great opportunity to choose what will support us in the next moment.

Being honest about how we feel is so important “So I went to bed knowing this was not an evening for catch-up TV or other things. I needed to just get into bed and reconnect – I knew that my body must still be tired, but I had just lost touch with it and the tiredness.” Just knowing that it was a night to sleep and not be busy or watch TV is so supportive. I know I have often overridden how I feel and so felt so much worse the next day. And this choice builds up and causes health issues and stress, alternatively listening to our body honours our own rhythm establishes a foundation that is so much more supportive.

That is education right there Gabriele. I often get these little conversations and have often felt fear at how I am going to get it all done, I think the trust comes with knowing that if you honour what you are feeling your body will come to the table and support you. If you override it then it simply can’t, not as a punishment but because it is working so hard to deal with the anxiety whilst it is supposed to be working on rejuvenating.

Great post Gabriele. For a long time now I have been overriding my tiredness with being on my ipad everynight before going to sleep. I go to bed early, but I know that often, I actually need to be asleep sometimes up to an hour before I actually switch off the lights. I know that keeping myself so engaged with a screen before bed does not help how I wake up in the morning, always so tired. Throughout the day, I think about how nice it will be that night and how this time I will just lay myself to sleep, no screen time! And yet, there it is again, I get to the evening…and out of nowhere I suddently have this second wind of energy, where I think I can get away with spending an hour on my ipad writing emails, etc. It doesnt work. I override my tiredness so that I don’t have to feel it…I don’t know why I do that, because instead, it’s waiting for me in the morning. Doesn’t make sense.

Is it possible that there is a belief that you will miss out if you don’t engage with electronic media when it is time to wind down and go to bed? I have found that this so-called second wind is really just an accelerated version of me that thinks I’m getting something done that will put me ahead of the next day and its anticipated workload. That feeling of elation and delight feels like it might be based entirely on nervous energy and anxiety – do you agree?

My favorite sentence in your sharing is “All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.” The moment we trust everything is OK, life is taking care of. And the fact, that we don’t have to look for anything, there is a knowing in us, we just have to access it.

And yet such a simple experience can indeed be quite profound, as the millions and millions of people who have difficulty sleeping, and indeed cannot sleep without taking some sort of medication Understand . so could it be that is a matter of reconnecting with oneself and one’s body and not allowing the minds busyness to take precedence that could be the answer to so many people’s nightly battles.

I can certainly remember trying to get to sleep and hating the train of thought that I had welcomed at first when getting into bed; my experience has been that the more I think, the more I think and then it is really hard to stop and get off that train. And there is certainly no connection to the body anymore at that point.

I have had this sensation, when I have put my children to bed about 7pm, some time I just feel sleepy, I have began to let go of the day with them and yet I will get them in bed and some times over ride this feeling to go and ‘do’ something, Once this has happened the sleepy gentle feeling is gone and a slight racy busyness comes in and yes “I have fooled myself that I am not tiered” Practicing how to come back from this and regain what the body was communicating with us is wonderful. It is great to find a way to rekindle this letting go and sleepiness, because this was what my body was asking for, rest, recuperation and nurturing.

To put the foot on the gas when the body is clearly signalling that it is time to wind down does lead to a ‘racy busyness’, I can relate to that. A good question to ask might be why we allow this to happen – do we feel we have missed out on something, are we in fear of what tomorrow will bring or does the day feel incomplete? And if it does, what is it that feels truly incomplete, is it something in us that we didn’t attend to or put enough focus on?

I will not be suprised if most people recognise this Gabriele. that we feel very tired, ready for bed and then suddenlybthe tirednes is gone. So important what you bring up to look what made this change? What did we do that we arme suddenly that active again? Which stimulance we use to keep us going and why we do so?

There are so many stimulating ways that kickstart us back into mental activity and an internal raciness, a very long list indeed. Another indication of how much we have invested in the mind and its incessant distractions and apparently so convincing stories. And all that at the expense of the body we live in.

Great to read this again and feel the parallel with my own behaviour when I know I am tired and ready for bed but I just hold out for that one last thing and – bam! I’m propelled into that ‘hint of potential overwhelm and a real pressure around the assumed possibility of not being able to meet ….new deadlines’. I then take that to bed and the moment I wake up – or perhaps a couple of split seconds after – that same feeling comes over me and fills my entire body. A kind of dread, a pall of anxiety and nervous tension. This is a great reminder that we don’t switch off our emotions when we go to bed at night. We merely put them on pause. That in itself is enough to make us think about how – in what state- we prepare for our sleep, as it’s how we will also be experiencing our next day.

I know that feeling well Cathy, of waking up and finding whatever I had not dealt with the night before is waiting for me as the first thought the next morning… and logically this must have affected my sleep throughout the night.

To listen to the body or to override the clear messages we are receiving, it pretty simple to listen to the body but how often can we ignore it. I know I am learning to honour my body more and can feel the difference this makes to my energy levels and my level of connection with myself.

“A kind of dread, a pall of anxiety and nervous tension” – I appreciate how you have described this terrible feeling that is so easily pulled in from a yet to be lived future which is now loaded with a heavy-hearted sense of anticipation and in effect, lived at least twice – the present moment in its heaviness and the actual event itself. That feels absolutely crazy and strikes me as a huge expenditure of precious energy.

Gabriele, your sharing highlights how important it is to trust and honour what we feel in our body and to deeply rest when our body is communicating that. Our head can very quickly override our body and once we lose the connection to our body we can no longer truly discern how we our feeling.

Thankyou Gabrielle. What a lovely reminder of the importance of listening to the wisdom of our body when it is telling us we are tired and need to start settling ourselves to sleep instead of letting our mind wind us up with the anxiety of our future to do list. A future that we actually need quality rest and sleep if we want to do all that we do with any quality and integrity.

We all need enough sleep so we feel rejuvenated and have the vitality to do all that we need to do to the quality we want to do it in. I have pondered on and observed my sleep patterns since first reading your blog Gabriele and it has now become undeniable to me despite making some changes to my sleep habits already they have not being enough. On top of this accumulated sleep debt I already have I continue to feed it by not getting enough sleep everyday. This pattern is keeping me trapped in a vicious circle of exhaustion. I now need to fully commit to clearing and healing this debt to nourish, rebuild and support my body and my connection to it which in turn will support my expression in and how I live my everyday life.

The pharmaceutical companies mightn’t like that, though – as long as we don’t take responsibility for how we are living, our lifestyle choices will keep making us sick and sicker; at the same time, the regular consumption of sleeping pills without addressing the real cause of the problem will just keep sky rocketing.

Hi Gabrielle, on re reading your blog I am reminded about how easy it is for my mind to take over and how it has such an impact on my body and that this is something that happens so often that I am not even aware that it is happening.

First great step – awareness of what we are actually doing to ourselves feels like a true starting point and launch pad into things to come. Without that awareness we would never know that there is a grander way to live.

Thank you Gabrielle for a great blog, so simple yet profound. I often find when sleep time comes my mind is looking for last minute things to do. and this takes me away from really feeling what my body is telling me. I love your statement “All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there. I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there.”

Gabriele, thank you for sharing your experience. When we listen to our body we know not only when we need to go to sleep, but how we need to take ourselves to bed too. It is also amazing how much our body is able to relay to us the more connected we are with it.

“Big deal? Yes, for me it was a big deal – an amazing experience of the truth of my body and the disengaged coldness of an otherwise different choice”.
I agree Gabrielle it is a big deal to be able to feel and listen to our bodies. Your blog is a lovely gentle reminder to honour our bodies and our nightly rhythms. At times it is so easy to dip into our heads and practical doings!
Thank you Gabrielle.

This is a beautifully written and flowing blog Gabriele. I know that feeling of getting into bed, I read a couple of lines from a Blue Book, turn out the light and before I know it I am awake ready to start my day. At other times I become distracted and I have a restless sleep instead of the one I felt I could have had if connected to myself instead of thoughts of tomorrow.

Thoughts of tomorrow are such a spoilsport – and the worst thing about them is that I then wake up with exactly the same thoughts in the morning, far far away from where my body actually is in some imagined or feared future scenario.

Yes Gabriele we definitely know how to set ourselves up. I know for myself that in the evening I can have completed my day, my body is ready for bed, there is nothing more i want and then in an instant I pick up my phone to check if there are any messages. Of course there are and then the next thing happens; I allow myself to react to one or two of the messages and gone is my easy going with my ready to go to sleep. And I and my body knew I should not check my phone in the first place.

Checking our phone – what a disaster that can turn out to be! And not just in the evenings, anytime really when it comes from an emptiness or the “not knowing of what next to do and so I might as well” is what I have found.

I love how you have described the physical feeling of being connected to and listening to your body Gabriele. You have shown true responsibility in using your awareness to return to what you could feel to be true and in return, your body woke you up allowing all that was needed to be done. A beautiful blog, thank you.

So interesting how distractions seem to come along prior to bedtime, these are great lessons to not get pulled away from our gentle rhythms before sleep. Having had many sleepless nights indulging in ‘what if’ scenarios or just the fact of not creating a gentle, rhythm to my bedtime routine. As you share Gabriele ‘thoughts of tomorrow’ are sleep deprivation tatics at full play.

Yes, uncanny how these thoughts about what else we could possibly do can come in just before bedtime – how does that happen? How come the great timing? Where do these self-sabotaging thoughts come from?

I can really relate to that feeling of overriding my tiredness. I generally feel and know when I am tired and when I need to be getting ready for bed, but there is still an almost childish part of me that wants to stay up longer and get more out of the day, especially when I have a long day at work. And I find myself plugged into the internet looking up things that I tell myself need to be looked up now, but the reality is that it could wait until the next day. This is basically a form of self sabotage as it certainly doesn’t aid me in falling asleep immediately, it actually does the opposite and gets my mind racing. So thank you for this blog Gabriele and tonight I am going to challenge yet another destructive pattern 🙂

“Childish” is a good word for this kind of petulence that wants to have the last word; it only gets it if we don’t step in but fall for the tantalising short-term goodies that apparently come with sabotaging our winding down rhythm.

Its your comment about how the head can take over as the pre-dominant organ, the one with the loudest voice that can take over from how we are actually feeling. I’ve felt this so often and its possible to get completely lost up there, for days or weeks! But as you say, it is so simple to just reconnect to what is going on everywhere else / somewhere else and the emphasis shifts with no great problem, and then everything feels different.

I have found that too; it can be easy to get lost and check out completely at times, but the more I connect the sooner I realise that I am ‘out’ and it now feels very uncomfortable and alien even. And to think that I used to get so very lost in my head and the mind’s acrobatics and consider it normal, even have sleepless nights because of the mental activity. A world of difference to today and a way to live that I don’t want to swap for anything.

I love that there were two pathways, one to ignore the body and focus on the deadlines and pressures of the next day (and perhaps not sleep well), or the other which was to focus on the feeling of tiredness in the body, keep it simple and just take care of you – which also took care of the work in the long run!

Gabriele this is such a gorgeous account on sleep you have written, to check into this connection you have described here with myself is one of the keys to the quality of sleep we have. Many a times in our busy lives and never perfect or ideal daily schedules, I have had to say no to a lot of the distractions that are either self-made or would enter (no surprise) around the time I am preparing for sleep, and if there was something I really have to deal with (and these are often as well), then just feeling the connection with my body when I lay in bed is what this blog has reminded me about, that the connection with my body is always there, and it is this connection that supports me in all circumstances.

It is so simple really – wherever we go, our body is with us, ready to support us and to let us know what is needed and what we would better do without. We then have the choice to either listen or not and deal with the consequences of either stance. End of story.

Great to be talking about this subject Gabriele, I can relate to what you are saying and feel most would, feeling tired from the day and clearly feeling the body prepare for sleep then overridding this to get jobs done or simply staying up longer thank what the body would like to then kicking into the next day’s reserve. So what happens to the tiredness? It gets buried deeper in the body. If this pattern continues over time it enevetably leads to exhaustion.

Yes Gabriele, and the bigger the debt, the harder it is to pay it so we find it hard to stop the momentum of doing because we will then feel how exhausted we are. It becomes a vicious cycle which is hard to break and is often only broken when we are stopped by an illness or a disease. And then we tend to blame the illness for the fact that we can’t keep functioning rather than seeing how we have created it by our own choices.

It’s interesting what food chooses we will crave or want when we have overridden the tired ready for bed feeling. when you give this some space to reflect its often wanting to eat when your not hungry or have something sweet. Wanting to have things that you wouldn’t normally throughout your day this is a clear indication that the body is wanting a pick me up through an energy boost because it is needing to be asleep.

Love this reminder to honour how we are feeling, lately I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed with work that I needed to complete and this has impacted my wind down time and quality of sleep. Your blog is what I needed to read today to remind me of listening to my body and the wisdom it speaks – definite early night for me tonight!

Gabriele, there is much of value in this simple blog – you describe very clearly what happens when we get caught in our heads and you demonstrate how we are so easily fed thoughts that are not ours but we can think they are unless we do, as you did, “observe how my head was running the show and feeding me this weird and unreal state of disembodied, strained and cold alertness.” I love how you also “gave what was there permission to be there” rather than being hard on yourself which would just take you further away from the body. By allowing ourselves to be where we are we stay with ourselves instead of projecting forward or backward to where we think we should be or to what we think we shouldn’t have done.

Cold Alertness that can be productive and get loads done in a cold, hard way or a warm tiredness that knows it’s not the energiser bunny and can bring a greater quality when lived and work in rhythm. What this blog highlighted to me this time around was how simple and loving the messages from the body were, and how cold and unloving the mind was. Just because we don’t meet the minds expectations when working with the body does not mean the body is at fault and we should ignore it. What if the mental drive was the ill and not the body just being awkward or failing our drive and needs? What if we don’t need to do all the things the mind feeds us that we have to do? Thank you Gabriele

Yes, exactly the point – the mind can easily drive us to do things that go totally against how the body actually feels; the question is only as to what we align to and allow ourselves to be motivated by.

There is great and very practical wisdom in your blog Gabriele about being honest and staying with honesty even though choices were being made to take you out of your body. It shows how powerful our feeling is and how the truth is there in our bodies of how we need to live and ultimately if we have a foundation of knowing that, then it will prevail. You have offered a great example of how life can be simple even though our past patterns of behaviour do not make it easy.

Yes, it is the momentum of our past behaviours at the expense of our body that need to be undone, step by step. Simple but it requires dedication and consistency and just becomes a part of everyday life.

The awareness of the two different perceptions of her body temperature that Gabriel makes reference to here is important. Thank God for warmth- without it, one could be numb to the cold and not know what missing. In the warmth there is ease and surrender and when cold we start to shut down.

I know this experience too Gabriel, of being tired and then something gets triggered and I am wide awake. I have also read this blog before but this time, I was struck by how delicate and sensitive we are and how easily we can waiver. This is not an excuse but an invitation to return to being with the body, without this, any analysis of ‘being out’ and asking ‘what took me out’ is useless. It is perhaps too simple an answer for modern medicine but it has to be one of the best kinds of medicine available.

We are delicate and super sensitive, I agree. Everything else is just part of the layers we have accumulated and put over the top to shield ourselves from what we think might be coming at us. And for some of us that can end up being a veritable fortress.

It’s so easy to be fooled by the head, it has run the show for so long. I have thoughts like, I’m tired but I need to wind down by watching something or by reading this book. It’s not true. As you say Gabriele, it’s just knowing that that tiredness is still in my body and allowing myself to connect. That going into reproach is just another way the head has of taking us away from the true feeling body.

I know those thoughts too Amanda, especially if I have been on the computer just before I go to bed. In those moments, it is the willingness to be with ourselves and even the willingness to simply be with our bodies, an openness to being connected without the pressure to re-connect as this blog reveals. Those ample moments I go looking for distractions are also opportunities, to be honest that I am looking outside of me to fill myself and I must be absent or empty of myself in those moments.

Within this blog is one of the best tips EVER…… and it can be an approach we take at any time of day. No berating for being separated, not trying to re-connect, watching out for the expectation to feel a particular way, and simply putting ‘feelers’ out and exploring what can be felt, in the body, in that moment. Pure gold Gabriele.

I really like it when you write about “watching out for the expectation to feel a particular way”, a dead giveaway that what comes next is not going to work but will lead to disappointment and frustration and even further away from the truth of the body.

Gabriele, I actively choose to read this blog today, I knew there was something for me to feel here and I didn’t know what it was … and it’s this, that no matter what has happened we can let go, how you went to bed after having gotten caught in the fog generated by your head is so instructive; how you let go, and allowed yourself to connect to the feelings that were there, and didn’t try and get back to the warm ones you’d felt; how you didn’t try. This is such an amazing sharing and a great stop for me to feel how I can chase feelings I’ve felt and try and get back to them when I know I’ve lost myself but that’s not it, as you show, it’s about simply allowing the possibility of true feeling again, and not expecting it to be what it was or any idea of how it should be – being open to seeing and feeling it no matter what. Thank you for this blog, it’s hugely supportive as I start my day.

I find it fascinating how when Gabriele Conrad became anxious in her body, her thoughts instantly changed. This shows me the very real connection between our bodies and the thoughts that we have, and that no thought happens just by accident – that they are in fact the result of a choice of quality we allow to be present in our bodies. And this gives us not only great power to determine the thoughts that we subsequently allow, but also to choose the quality of life that we live.

I find this fascinating too Shami. All in the choice. The action has not even been carried out in the sense that we don’t even have to act on our thoughts to feel their true impact on our body. Even just the thought alone is enough to change the state of the body as with that thought comes the energy that brings that state of being

Thank you Gabriele for your recipe for repose and restorative sleep. Feeling the natural tiredness in the body, the impact when we choose mental activity, recognising the effect of the choice but not allowing further mental activity by berating yourself for the choice but trusting your body to surrender to sleep and waking restored and alert to meet whatever the day presented.

What a great dissection of how we use the busyness of our minds to override the wisdom from our body. By putting these movements under the microscope such as you have Gabriele, we can really feel the step-by-step process we use to negate the truth of what we feel in favour of ‘getting the job done’. The problem here being that if we override what is true simply to execute a task, then the quality with which we execute it becomes vastly reduced. That is to say, we forfeit bringing our all (our love) to all that we do and settle for a greatly truncated version to complete the work at hand. What you have showed us is a way to be minutely aware of the seemingly subtle process in place to sabotage living the fullness of who we are so that we can return to living simply, truth-fully and lovingly. Thank you.

As a society, we are living one step a-head of ourselves and leaving our bodies, and hence our innate wisdom, behind. In order to truly evolve back to our former majesty, we need to re-connect how we move with who we are. When body and mind are in harmony in this way, the true path forward will be seen once more.

I also really like how you have brought our attention to the fact that truth is a warmth that emanates from our body, whereas all that is not true is void of this warmth. Deep down we all know this as evidenced by our expressions such as a ‘cold, hard intellect’ and the like.

Sleepnessness is essentially a state of being that comes from being overly connected to things outside of us – in other words in truth it results from being disconnected to what is most important – ourselves, and that includes our body. It is time we realised that our being is made up of our entire body and not defined purely by what we think.

Your blog highlights just how easy it is for us to let the mind override our body’s natural signals with a force that leaves us in an entirely different state of being. This is particularly evident when it comes to acknowledging and honouring the body’s tiredness at day end.

This warm lovely feeling of tiredness you describe is something we can feel at the end of our day when we are connected to our body. Your blog shows us how easy it is to disconnect from that lovely feeling in our body and go to our head and boom we get this what some people call ‘second wind’. But as quickly as we can disconnect from our body we can also very easily and quickly reconnect to our body again, it is just a matter of choice. How we choose to move and express through the day affects the quality of our sleep.

Great to come across this today as I have been going to bed too late just recently and it is because I have allowed those thoughts to get the better of me. Today I have a headache. My body is finally saying enough is enough. Now I have to treat myself with more care, an epsom salts bath maybe instead of my usual shower and a recommitment to myself and living the love that I know I am.

It can be very easy to see why we override those natural message of our body, with lots of opportunity for distraction and plenty of tools to do this with, even the contents of a busy mind. I don’t know that it’s not about using technology but definitely what we place our body into as we use it. Awareness is the key and that’s the beauty of what you shared Gabriele, your observations of what you were observing in your body. The difference was stark and a clear marker for what is supportive and what isn’t

Awesome to feel and read what you share Gabriele as it shows that when we stop and observe our body we create markers that support us to come back to what is true. Nothing more and nothing less just simply feeling what is true in our body and surrendering to it.

I enjoyed reading about the awareness that you brought to what supported you to go to sleep. Often its just something we do and don’t think about. I can’t really recall how I go to sleep, there is just a point where I am awake and then I wake up the next morning, it has supported me to look at the quality I am in before I finally nod off.

I have also found that I can be just about semi-conscious about lots of daily and so-assumed mundane recurrences and that it is only when something really sticks out that I sit up, take notice and do something about it. I am at present focussing on bringing that stance to everything I do and everything that happens – definitely a work in progress.

Gabriele, your blog shows how no matter what decisions we’ve made to take us away from that connection with our body, we can reconnect, it’s just a matter of that willingness to go there and feel what is there to be felt.

Thank you for pointing this our Gabriele, our bodies communicate very clearly at all times when we need to lovingly call it a day and disregard of these messages can lead in the motion and drive of the day to often missing out on the healing quality of a good night sleep.

Thank you Gabriele, the message in this blog is simple and yet so profound, as you say. Living in a way that truly honours my body is an absolute game changer that supports me in all areas of my life and has a flow on effect to everyone around me as well.

We do need to stop and feel, as this allows us to reflect on where we are. If our body is tired or exhausted, we need to understand why and how we have got there. We need to reflect on our movements to be able to understand what choices did we make that led us to this point. If we have no stop moments we would not understand that we would need to change our choices in order to honour our body.

This is so interesting and I often am doing exactly what you describe of checking emails etc and it is true I just get more and more disconnected from my body and end up racy and abusing my self with thoughts of what needs to be done.

Last night I went to bed at 8:30 having gotten out of rhythm and going to bed after 9pm, I couldn’t believer the difference getting to bed that little bit earlier made, I awoke at 2:38 ready for the day – which I never do! I was refreshed and awake, really extraordinary that being more in the rhythm of respecting my bodies need for rest early had such a major impact on waking.

There is such a big difference in the quality of your sleep when you go to bed honouring yourself and when you drop into bed in a tired heap. With the later you wake up feeling exhausted and like you haven’t slept.

When I used to work night duty one of my favourite feelings was to get into bed. But I did it in way that I would feel my body and then let go. Such an exquisite feeling and even now I use this, even though getting into bed feels very different, when you haven’t been up all night.

This is simple and profound. We can totally trust that if we allow it, the body will know just what to do. The body does not put aside the tiredness like the mind does. It is beautiful to have this trust in the knowing of your body. So worthwhile to ponder on.

Ah yes, I know this space well…where the head hijacks the body and takes it on a ‘joyride’ until we come to our senses and wonder where on earth are we? Well exactly, we are no longer on Earth but orbiting in the mental realm far removed from the body that grounds us. Although in this space it feels we will never return to safe ground, especially once the anxiety and anxiousness of ‘what’s to come’ kicks in, as you have so simply shown us Gabriele, it only takes a simple choice to surrender back to the warmth of the body and feel once more where the stillness of our true self lies.

Many of us do not fully realise that sleep is an ‘activity’ and in order to get the most out of this replenishing process we need to first surrender to it. Sounds simple and in-truth it is but not so when we live in a perpetual propulsion forward, always a-head of ourselves, pumped full of stimulants such as coffee and sugar from the day and always fretting about what comes next. That is, we spend all day fighting ourselves in the sense that we are not providing our physical bodies with supportive foods and movements that then affect the quality of thoughts we allow in. All this pushes us into anxiousness and drive and we then wonder why it is we can’t sleep well at night.

The body sends us clear messages of when its preparing for sleep at night. How often do we listen to these messages versus continue with a plan of what we want to get done to find that a second wind has kicked in with the sleepy feeling gone. So where does this ‘second wind’ more energy come from? and is this actually energy that would be used the next day so if it is abused the night before, does this not leaving a feeling of depletion, a tireless the next day when we awake? Makes sense to me.

Great sharing Gabrielle. Very inspiring how you observe the change from feeling the warmth in your body to this cold fog where you managed your self into. Just by attending to some emails, seemingly a small thing we can do. It also shows how cold “the head” is.

This story shows that indeed seemingly small things can take us away from the unwinding to a good night sleep. So many people are suffering from insomnia unnecessarily, while really honestly looking at what we do at night before we go to sleep already helps a big deal.

I’m so wrapped I found this blog – exactly what I needed to hear! Not in the sense of sleeping and waking up, but in the reconnection and disconnection of the body and mind. So often I TRY to reconnect when I know I have disconnected, and it never works. And then comes the merry-go-round of being upset at myself for disconnecting and having the expectation of what it feels like to reconnect again. I love how you spoke about the trust of knowing your body is still feeling and simply allowing space to feel whatever is there, without conditions.

This reminds me of the significant importance to take stop moments during the day to check in with my body. I can easily be overrun by thoughts and feel like a body-less head walking around. When the mind takes over, or when I allow the mind to be my initial guide, I leave behind the wisdom of the body and everything it is connected to. I often remind myself that the mind cannot feel, it is a functional tool that can be very well used but is not the lead.

“It was amazing to observe how my head was running the show.” Yes I found the same Gabriele and the strange, unreal sensation that takes over the body from completely disconnecting from it so that from our head we easily think we are not tired.

We all know deep down when it is time to go to bed as the body send us signals loud and clear. It is often the methods of over riding that leave us in comfort of wanting a little bit more to end the day that play out in the quality we live the next day.

It is so simple catching the moment where the body communicates what is needed in that moment but the interesting challenge is the challenge we can go into when the head gets involved and brings in all the old patterns and habits we have been nurturing to avoid what is true. My way of winding down was to watch TV and rush a round getting everything done at night before going to bed and found that I would be waking every hour and then still tired the next morning. I have now changed my evenings so that I can go to bed earlier and do not watch TV or try to cram in as much as I can and have found this has changed my quality of sleep. Staying connected to the body makes the difference to how my day and nights are and allows for more stillness and harmony.

Thank you Gabrielle, a beautiful marker of inspiration – knowing now that all of what we do is felt or disengaged from the initial feeling – and so , we have lost the true purpose from who we are; which is allowing, accepting and appreciating all there is, like you shared, has brought you right back into place.

An amazing blog – I know the feeling of going to bed with your mind still running at a million miles an hour, and truly restful sleep is a million miles away. What your describing is so simple and yet I have implemented a bed time routine of connecting back to my body and I find I am asleep so easily and quickly.

There is so much our bodies can share with us when we tune in….and when we tune out it is still going on but we have chosen a different awareness or focus. I mean that I love that you shared that the tiredness was still there but it had been overridden by the drive and need and that you can choose to connect back to you and your body so you can truly rest.

How often are our beds a place to drop into at the end of the day in exhaustion? A safe haven when it all gets a bit too much to handle. Bringing a routine calls us to become more responsible in the part we play with the levels of care and quality of living we bring each day. It is great to read that bedtime can be “me time” without the added pressures felt in the day.

It is literally a different world when we start listening to and honouring what we feel. The body is such a greater marker of the truth of what we are feeling, it is just learning how to really pay attention and honour that that requires dedication, but is absolutely worth it.

This part about feeling the body versus being in the coldness of the head is quiet an experience to have and one that I can certainly relate to Gabrielle. I too have found a similar experience where I feel this amazing yumminess and am so ready for bed and sleep but then I override it and end up doing something that puts me in my head and gives me a ‘second wind’ so to speak – except this second wind always comes with a consequence of feeling more tired the next day. This might be one of the simplest lessons to take on board, but it is funny how it can seemingly be one of the more difficult ones to grasp and put into practice. Though in reality it is so simple, and the difficulty lies only in our minds and when we let our minds take over the decision making!

Thank you for sharing this Gabrielle, bringing this level of awareness to the body is truly supportive. I like how you didn’t give yourself a hard time when you felt the disconnection but honestly saw it for what it was, and made a choice to reconnect. The body is an awesome teacher.

It can be such a strong pull, doing just one more thing and thinking that it won’t make a difference; I have also found that it does make a difference, to how I sleep, how long and especially how I wake up.

Such is the temporal world and all its ways that can have great impact if we are not in rhythm with. And hence the great importance of having a solid and stable relationship with ourselves and our bodies so that we are always in touch with what is true of us or not.

Beautiful Gabriele. It shows that we go cold if we live and starting thinking from our heads. But we need also to think every now and then. The clue is then to think from our bodies, thinking and the meantime also feeling our bodies.

When I truly acknowledge my body’s tiredness and that what it needs next is sleep, I know I’m keeping it from tipping into a mild form of exhaustion. When I override the subtleties of this that I have come to know and increasingly to appreciate, then I know that I am going to wake up the next morning carrying the legacy of the choice I made the night before. It’s like the pause button goes on at the point of sleep and just gets released again on wakening. So I’m right back where I was – unrefreshed, uninvigorated. That phrase, ‘it’ll all be alright in the morning’ now for me entirely depends on whether I made the choice to honour my body’s tiredness the night before.

When we are tired it is so easy to trick ourselves into believing we are not and somehow end up being awake for another hour or two checking our emails, catching up on social media or the news instead of honouring what our body is communicating to us.

Hello Gabriele and this maybe an older blog but it’s a great one. The simplicity of trusting what you feel and what you have felt but equally important is connection. I love how when you felt the connection not as strong or lost your dedication, was to get back to that connection first. So often the thoughts that come after you lose that feeling are to take you further away. As you demonstrate the ‘best’ thing or the most responsible thing to do is reconnect, first.

Oh such a powerful reminder… Feeling the natural tiredness of my body is a beautiful feeling of surrender but I will often sabotage it just as you describe Gabriele… Being in and with my body is the true safest more exquisite place because I am then in connection with who I am whereas my mind will take me on a Merry-go-round of emotions and dramatics and the yumminess of my inner connection lost – until I choose to reconnect again.

Great bed time story. Nothing wrong with feeling tired, and amazing to feel how our heads can cut off ourselves from feeling tired and let us just move on: like a cold zombie. And our bodies do actually get cold when we are in our heads.

It’s such a clear description you have made about the difference between the cold, mental energy that disconnects us from the body, and the lovely warmth of being connected to and fully feeling the body.

“All I could feel was that my head had become the most prominent part of me. I also became aware of an anticipatory feeling of being rushed sometime in the future (tomorrow), plus a hint of potential overwhelm and a real pressure around the assumed possibility of not being able to meet these new deadlines. And somewhere lay waiting a whole barrage of thoughts about all the other things I had to do and somehow squeeze into the next day, and subsequent days.” This is brilliantly described – Gosh how i can relate to this slow drip feed of anxiousness that arrives in my body – and how fascinating the way it overrides the bodies natural call to rest. I have found that completion has a big part to play in this Gabriele, for if we go to bed feeling a sense of completion then we can surrender to the length and depth of sleep that is required to support us.

I catch myself trying to do things before I go to bed, and then I ask myself if what I’m doing is truly necessary or am I avoiding allowing my body to stop. Often I find what I need to do is necessary but honour how my body feels and get up early in the morning to do what is needed.

I have had a busy week and have been feeling very tired. Last night I went to bed early but then spent 45 minutes on my phone. It’s just gone 8pm but I think I will take myself to bed now and I’m not going to look at my phone or try and squeeze in any extra little jobs on the way. Inspiring blog and comments.

I learned a beautiful way to deepen the quality of my sleep. It is to adjust in the evening your expanding energy which we all do in one way or the other. It is to bring that expanding energy what can be felt to one centre place within your spine. As in the night it is to wind down. This way I experience a much more claimed sleep in stead as before I was more dropping into sleep but not claimed with myself. And then it is the same as we can do on daytime. If we choose to be disconnected from ourselves you leave space for others to enter.

At night we will get a time that the body is indicating that it wants to go to bed. Do we listen to this message from the body regardless of time or to the time we may have in head saying it’s bed time. Many people can relate to feeling tired then not going to bed only to get a second wind and the tiredness disappears but what happens to that tiredness? How do you feel when you to this in the morning? Revitalized when you wake up or tired?